Earlier this year, Parts & Labor announced a series of shows commemorating their 10-year anniversary and journey into indefinite hiatus status. Seems as appropriate as any time to start assessing their legacy.
PARTS & LABOR - STAY AFRAID (2006)
In 2006, Brooklyn’s Parts & Labor released their first proper (meaning w/ vocals) LP, Stay Afraid, on JagJaguwar/Brah/Cardboard Records. At the time, the album stuck out like a sore thumb in my collection. Most significant post-millennial underground music fell into two awkwardly related camps - harsh, structureless noise or elfish folk with a bend towards the weird, otherworldly, or psuedo-spiritual. Stay Afraid was neither of those things. It was as noisy and abrasive as anything New Weird America produced but its over-distorted guitars, assaulting percussion and circuit-bent keyboards were wrapped tightly around unrelenting and anthemic rock song structures. But what was possibly more alarming was just how passionate a record it was. Disaffection entrenched both the noise and weirdo-beardo psych scenes of the early-aughts - hearing a loud, passionate rock record felt like something meant for another time. But ultimately, Stay Afraid proved to be just the opposite. It may have been bucking subaltern trends at the time, but the record served as both a call to arms and return to form for American Underground rock music. It would only be a few years before noise bands like Magik Markers would embrace the power of structure and then two post-hardcore upstarts out of Los Angeles calling themselves No Age would carry the American Underground banner into our post-aught culture.
But more significant than what Stay Afraid did for our largely insignificant white underground rock culture, is just how concisely and powerfully it captures the socio-politcal-emotional world of 2006 America. Not only is Stay Afraid a post-9/11 record, it’s also a post-2004 election record. For the thinking/caring people of the U.S., the reelection of George W. Bush was a deafening blow, a continued erosion to the moral fabric of the country. The first time dude got elected, he didn’t even win, but the second time felt like a kick right through the gut. After all that guy had done, it just seemed implausible we’d give him the go around for a second term. The actual events of September 11th may have shaken American “innocence” to the core but the paranoia that rose in the wake had as much if not more to do with the actions of the Bush administration than the workings of those actually weird and bearded men living in dessert caves (or as it would turn out, mansions) on the other side of the planet. Stay Afraid is an album about grappling with and living through that paranoia. The lyrics are all death and concrete and repair and fear and anger and confusion. The way those circuit-bent keyboards bend around melodies feels just like the collective anxiety and heartburn the U.S. had going strong 5 years after the actual attacks. In the end, Stay Afraid is a fitting soundtrack to a very scary time in U.S. history.
Probably doesn’t sound too appetizing, but history rarely is.
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