Posted: April 11th, 2008
Contributed By: Nick

	Purchase @ iTunes Release Date: March 11, 2008 via Roadrunner Records
	The Parlor Mob is: Mark Melicia (Vocals) Dave Rosen (Guitar) Paul Ritchie (Guitar) Nick Villapiano (Bass) Sam Bey (Drums)

Overview: The Parlor Mob cracked its cocoon in 2004 in New Jersey (Jersey pride baby!…sorry, had to do it), calling themselves What About Frank? and hurriedly blueprinting a solid repertoire for themselves. The quintet rocked numerous showcases, landed gigs on Warped Tour and Bamboozle, and earned spins on multiple radio outlets. Apparently, the guys couldn’t quite figure out just what it was about this Frank fellow and re-enlisted as The Parlor Mob; shortly thereafter in 2006, the band inked with Capitol Records. The Parlor Mob tracked a modest four tracks, but as quickly as their deal came to head it fizzled out, leaving them free agents once again. An earth’s rotation around the sun later and Roadrunner Records came calling, signing the band in mid-2007. The Parlor Mob went to work on their debut for Roadrunner, with ‘And You Were A Crow‘ being the fruit of their efforts; the album hit digital retailers on March 11, 2008 with a physical street date coming next month.

The Good: ‘And You Were A Crow‘ is the incense and peppermints of modern rock-from top to bottom, the album is soaked in a late 60’s/early 70’s vibe, but still rolls out enough present day savvy to lure in heaps of new audiences. What really sets The Parlor Mob apart from so many other bands, even ones of a similar ilk by today’s standards, is that the band really seems to have carte blanche over their craft, as made evident from the effort’s opener, the head-bobbing “Hard Times”, which only touched your toes to the water and begs for you to venture deeper into the opus. “Dead Wrong” is a heart-pounding, upbeat rock assault that will have you up out of your seat and putting your hands in the air and wavin’ them ’round like you just don’t care, while “Everything You’re Breathing For” decelerates seamlessly, with its zesty, Southern tinged sound captivating every man and woman from Woodstock ‘69 to now. “The Kids” is surely not for children, a bold and sludgy cut that shows The Parlor Mob slyly masking rare gossamer moments for the band with bursts of color and pizzazz. ‘And You Were A Crow‘ should be thankful the song “When I Was an Orphan” was adopted for the record, as its impassioned disposition, combined with cunning dynamics and a roaring ending pave the way for one of the album’s most intrepid stages. Don’t let the title of “Angry Young Girl” send you running the other way like it did to Dave Grohl who wishes he could have it for the last Foo record; this PMS-free trip is as enveloping and ambient as it is consistent and thorough. The Parlor Mob returns the album to the redline with the high-velocity, jam-packed “Carnival of Crows”, which, despite its muscle, does not spoil the grace and majesty carved by the band in the previous handful of songs. “Real Hard Headed” is as free-spirited as you will ever hear a group of musicians, further bolstered by the eye-opening harmonica skills put on display. The epic of ‘And You Were A Crow‘ arrives with “Tide of Tears”, an inquisitive, enigmatic search for peace; what I like most about “Tide of Tears” is how The Parlor Mob rolls the dice a bit in regards to the song’s tempo, which, although remaining somewhere in between the tortoise and the hare for the entirety, never seems to tire out or feel monotonous. “Bullet” is just as the name implies, as the band utilizes the opening minute to cock its gun and then fires away round after round of spunk and attention to detail into your eardrums. ‘And You Were A Crow‘ calls it a day with the lighthearted “Can’t Keep No Good Boy Down”, a bluegrassy and dangerously hooky 3 minutes 40 seconds that will undoubtedly have you “turning back for more”; whether intended or not, I hear an ode to Creedence Clearwater Revival with this song-hopefully you’ll feel the same way.

The Bad: The Parlor Mob has created quite the double-edged sword with ‘And You Were A Crow‘-while their sound is without question a breath of fresh air, the riffs and grooves the band relies on do start to sound repetitive after a few spins, only to be rescued on more than one occasion by punchy drumwork and star-studded vocals. The aforementioned issue seems to take away from some of the album’s most creative moments, as a majority of the tunes are unintentionally intertwined into one another. Although to justify the band for a moment, I could understand why they would want everything to mesh together, as the spine of their style is held in tact by a back-and-forth pendulum of big, gritty riffs, meaty, tom-driven drums, and high voltage vocals; sadly ipso facto, it makes moments where they try to appeal to the listener’s soft-side seem a tad awkward and misplaced, despite the group’s obvious strengths in the aforementioned area. Lyrically, ‘And You Were A Crow‘ doesn’t tread any new ground, with similar structures peppering the albums of bands such as Silvertide, StoneRider, and Black Stone Cherry among others in the past few years. I think the most detrimental factor to The Parlor Mob as well as ‘And You Were A Crow‘ has nothing to do with their sound at all, but rather their arrival on the market. Although spun with a more retro web, the band would have benefited from this collection of songs hitting stores in mid to late 2007, before the rock world became saturated with a plethora of bands suiting up for a similar fate and ending up lost in the shuffle rather than distinguished and recognized; unjustly, this could wind up the case for The Parlor Mob, their pioneer sound that soars beyond the majority of their peers being disdainfully filed away with the rest of the “rock ‘n roll resurgence” artists cracking the scene.

Bottomline: I wasn’t a thought in anyone’s mind back when the pot was cheaper than today’s gas prices (kidding), record players were the iPod equivalent, and bell-bottoms were as cool as LA Gears when I was in the first grade. Nevertheless, if you were to catch me cruising down the road in my VW van back then, you would surely hear The Parlor Mob’s album ‘And You Were A Crow‘ cranking out of my innovative 5-watt soundsystem. I want to fast forward a few decades and come clean-I never really got into classic rock, be it from the 1960’s or the 1980’s, and my interest in music really begins with the grunge breakthrough. Still, The Parlor Mob have done a hell of a job bridging the gap from then to now, putting so many other groups to shame that are trying their darndest to do the same; the tunes the band present here might not tread too much ground that hasn’t already been charted years ago as well as today, but I promise you this-listening to ‘And You Were A Crow‘ is far more entertaining than 30 seconds of That 70’s Show and with heaps more nostalgic and creative merit to boot.

Rating: 8 out of 10