() Australian indie-pop group Parcels release their third studio album, LOVED out now via Because Music. The 12-track collection is the band's most collaborative and personal work yet. LOVED is exuberant and euphoric, but also reflective. It's an album of unity - with each other, with the listeners, in the grooves - and that's indisputable.
Within LOVED, Parcels honor each member's perspective, while also acknowledging the collective force, camaraderie, and romance of the five of them in it together: an unbreakable, unreplicatable dynamic essential to the band's creative heart-spring. "We do have a purpose as a band to our audience: we're giving people joy," says guitarist/vocalist Jules Crommelin. "I see it as spirit, and it's an incredibly powerful thing."
The journey of LOVED began following a six-month hiatus in early 2023, the first time the band had rested since they formed in 2014 . When the quintet reconvened, they brought individual compositions to life in studios across Berlin, Byron Bay, Sydney, Oaxaca, and Mexico City - an approach that vastly differed from their previous album, Day/Night, which was recorded in a single studio. While the band's rich five-part harmonies have always been characteristic and key, on this self-produced album, Parcels up the ante by recording their vocals in unison, clustered around two mics. ""We started to be way more free with the way we would sing and improvise," explains keyboardist/guitarist Patrick Hetherington. "Hopefully you feel like you're standing in the middle of all four of us singing."
"It's very internal for all of us, so personal and so deep, which is sometimes quite uncomfortable," reflects Patrick on the album's creation. "But I guess that's what Parcels is - at least at the moment - all of us having that individual journey, then trying to make a space so we can funnel everybody's experiences into the same world and express it as a celebration."