Parenthetical Girls – Privilege

Although touted as the fourth LP from this Portland-based avant-indie quartet, Privilege is technically a compilation, comprising remixed and remastered highlights from a series of five EPs released from 2010-12. Despite that fragmentary basis, there’s an impressive aesthetic cohesion in evidence here. That’s partly due to the rejection of the orchestral elements underpinning the group’s last outing, 2008's Entanglements, Privilege, by contrast, is relatively austere, drawing its palette primarily from hard-edged, trebly guitars and psych-inspired synths.
 
This stripping-away of the band’s chamber-pop elements reveals the angsty power at their core, centring around Zac Pennington’s infectiously overwrought vocals. Parenthetical Girls understand the weirdly unsettling power that can reside in seemingly innocuous, pop-inspired melodies; tracks like Evelyn Mchale and A Note to Self, while jauntily accessible on the surface, have a secret intensity which stubbornly lodges itself in the brain. Privilege, then, represents another twist in a career marked by playful subversion. [Sam Wiseman]