Description

50th anniversary editon on double album on black vinyls with gatefold cover and one side lazer etched

If S.F. Sorrow is the Pretty Things Sgt. Pepper, Magical Mystery Tour, and Yellow Submarine wrapped in one, then Parachute is their more succinct White Album and Abbey Road. It’s not just a time line comparison. The Pretties made this fascinating album in the same studio as the Fab Four, London’s Abbey Road, with Beatles engineer Norman Smith producing. The Good Mr. Square replicates the three-part harmony the Beatles were so proud of on Because. Two songs later, the group assembles a brief, interconnected three-song suite like the famous ones on side two of Abbey Road. Bassist Wally Allen’s vocals on tracks such as Sickle Clowns have the same throaty, mad anguish that John Lennon exhibited on Yer Blues and Happiness Is a Warm Gun. If S.F. Sorrow is hard rock grandeur, then Parachute is its more bitter twist, the dream dying and the witching hour upon us. Yet, if this isn’t as much of a triumph, the creative neurons are still firing throughout a multi-varied, cohesive album. Like S.F. Sorrow, it’s a surprisingly palatable concept album. This time the topic is a generation caught between the conflicting calls of (rural) peace, love, and boredom, and (urban) sophistication, sex, and squalor in a harsh world. Somehow the departure of the band’s main creative force, Dick Taylor, didn’t diminish the writing and inspired variety. Allen stepped up big time into the collaborator role with singer Phil May. The harmonies remain a strong point on an otherwise rock-inclined record, and the nasty edge of perfectly balanced bombast in the best songs have been a lost art ever since.

Track list:
1. Scene One
a) The Good Mr. Square
b) She Was Tall She Was High
2. In The Square
3. Miss Fay Regrets
4. Cries From The Midnight Circus
5. Grass
6. Sickle Clowns
7. She’s A Lover
8. What’s The Use
9. Parachute
10. Blue Serge Blues
11. Octobre 26
12. Cold Stone
13. Stone-Hearted Mama
14. Summer Time
15. Circus Mind