Parkway Drive
Deep Blue

I feel a bit of tension writing a review for this album. Maybe it's because I love the band, but Parkway Drive was really risking a lot with this new release. Two albums already considered classics, a remarkably successful DVD, sold-out tours all over the globe... not bad for a group that once at best opened for I Killed The Prom Queen. Failing at the crucial third album could have meant losing all that in an instant, and they wouldn't have even been the first to make such a dizzying downfall, see the Canadians Despised Icon: an interesting debut ("The Healing Process"), a top-notch second album (the killer "The Ills of Modern Men"), an embarrassing third album ("Day of Mourning", crappy to say the least), which meant a loss of credibility, listeners, earnings, and guess what? Despised Icon is disbanding right now... So, quite a responsibility indeed.

Perhaps that's why all of a sudden I find the Australian combo in the mood for change and experimentation, ready for a new album and intent on leaving the architect of their international success for another heavyweight producer, namely Joe "Evil" Barresi, an artist with a truly enviable experience (Tool, Queens Of The Stone Age, Melvins, Coheed And Cambria...). And yes, listening to this new record, the much-anticipated "Deep Blue" (it’s a sort of concept album about the loss of identity), what immediately stands out is precisely the difference with its illustrious predecessor: a less muffled and "digital" sound, raw and naked as if it were a Rick Rubin album. And if the lyrics represent a clear step forward, picking up the existential themes that characterized the best tracks of Horizons, the musical counterpart has caused quite a few perplexities. One above all, the new single "Sleepwalker", almost a Crossover hit with a riff swiped from "The Glass Prison" by Dream Theater, perfectly represents the dual soul of this album: listening to it is like discovering masturbation; first, you are surprised, then you are afraid of it, then you get used to it, and finally, you can't do without it. It may seem like a bold comparison, but listening to "Deep Blue" is like discovering masturbation.

The entire album is a pendulum swinging between moments of maximum inspiration, like the lethal "Unrest", "Deadweight", "Deliver Me", and very interesting episodes far removed from the classic sound of the first 2 albums, like "Sleepwalker", and very few poorly executed songs, one above all, the reworking of a track already present on "Don't Close Your Eyes", formerly called "Hollow Man" and here simply "Hollow", which features the collaboration of the singer from The Warriors. But beware, if you were madly in love with the sounds of KWAS and Horizons and are more attached to certain stylistic immobilism, with lots of albums all the same, you’ll find in "Deep Blue" a good reason to break up with the group. Too different, too new, too "punk", it's not a few die-hard fans who were left dumbfounded by this new release, perhaps expecting simply a "Horizons 2" after a good 3 years of waiting. And a bit like it was for "Untouchables" by Korn or "Vol. 3" by Slipknot, not to mention the various "Black Album", "Risk" and so on, "Deep Blue" represents an intense watershed between the recent past of the group and a new future that seems to promise many more surprises.

Personally, I would add an extra star while if you are among those still humming "There's blood in the water", do not rush to listen and feel free to take one off without fear.