One of the more indefinable acts to emerge from Montreal’s burgeoning indie scene in recent years, Parlovr is a trio built on unrelenting creativity, ambitiously pushing towards a blend of retro surf and soul nestled within hyper modern pop songs quickly earning global attention.

 

Incubated in a Mile End loft during 2006-07 by Alex Cooper (keys/vocals), Louis David Jackson (guitar/vocals) and Jeremy MacCuish (drums), Parlovr emerged in late 2008 with its self-titled debut, featuring a collection of raw, dynamic tracks as odd as they were infectious. Quirky, catchy and full of familiar and unknowable elements, the album garnered rave reviews throughout Canada and landed the band a deal with Dine Alone Records.

 

Amassing attention from tastemakers for their blissfully bizarre tracks and seizure-inducing live shows, Parlovr returned in 2010 with buzz building EP Hell/Heaven/Big/Love, playing U.S. and European shows with Arctic Monkeys, Franz Ferdinand, Handsome Furs, Surfer Blood, Born Ruffians and Tokyo Police Club.

 

Throughout the year blog buzz continued to build around Parlovr’s salacious sounds, with Stereogum and Brooklyn Vegan taking notice and Spin Magazine trumping the band as one of five to watch from Montreal.

 

Enter Kook Soul. Parlovr’s next full-length foray strives to break new ground, even as it keeps an eye to the past. Though the band’s sonic tangent continues unabated, it now draws more heavily on the fundamental elements of rock and roll, striving to stretch them further than before.

 

“Thematically, the whole record is about remembering, and pining over relationships and all the different shapes they take throughout one’s life,” Cooper explains.  “Heartbreak, infatuation, teenage love, old age regret, faded feelings.”

 

Those timeless sensations inspired what Cooper calls the “retro futuristic motif” that fills and surrounds the record. Few bands are capable of such range without creative compromise or the loss of accessibility.

 

“We kept going back to one of our favorite records, Flaming Lips' Soft Bulletin, for production and sound ideas,” he adds. “That and a lot of other 50s stuff.”

 

Recorded during winter of 2011 with Martin Horn of Digital Bird Studios, the album makes good on the aesthetic its name promises. Tracks expand and contract, with epically inclined, organ-driven builders like “Married On A Sunday” and stay-at-home soul chops like those showcased on “Amaze-Me-Jane.”

 

Ultimately, Kook Soul is as much a testament to the band’s knowledge of the past as it is the strength of its vision. A vision that is realized as Parlovr ceases to be a band worth watching, transformed instead into one that must be followed.