PARADE GROUND ROSARY ALBUM SLEEPWALKING RELEASE: JULY 2, 2007 REVIEW: AUGUST 28, 2007

I am literally blind sided by this new album from the legendary Parade Ground. It's not what I expected, it's certainly not going to broaden their fanbase and the fans who do remember them may find this act nearly unrecognizable. "Rosary" is the first new work from Parade Ground since 1988. That ought to tell you something. Front 242's Patrick Codenys has produced this album, but you'd never guess it. The songs sound like they were recorded in an endless chasm. This is almost post-punk sounding, right out of 1979 or 1980.

When last we heard from the Pauly brothers, it was their supremely catchy single "Hollywood" which occupied our minds. It's no coincidence that Colin Newman (Wire) produced their debut album "Cut up". All these years later, Parade Ground appear to have taken more than just a few cues from that enigmatic English act. Cues, yes, but they are most certainly not appropriating them, they're using them as markers to indicate where they've been.

Each track is punctuated by a continual theme, a rosary, as it were, which I think most will find quite surprising. The experimentalism which Parade Ground's new album (nearly twenty years in the making) features I expect will confound many, but for those who choose to venture into the hyperactive yet manic frenetics of this album, it will take you to places you never thought existed. Within this omniscient darkness, much beauty is revealed.

I never thought they would make an album like this. Their poppier former work is completely eclipsed by "Rosary". This is the rebar you find in the concrete slabs passing by demolished architecture, the bent and twisted girders which rust in twilight. Never losing their impact, never relinquishing their ability to wound. Puncture. Scar.

PETER MARKS