Parkway

Item: Glad You Made It
Author: Jesse N.

Glad You Made It

(2000)

Reviewed by Jesse N.

Discogs YouTube

Label Essential RecordsReAL Magazine2000

funk rock modern rock pop rock r&b

Parkway is composed of Damian Horne and Lance Black, front men from the band formerly known as Silage. Horne and Black felt the need to continue their music together after Silage broke up in 1999. If you heard Silage, you know their sound is hard to describe. Something in the realm of a pop/punk/rock/ska mix. Parkway is equally difficult to describe. Parkway maintains some of the rock elements, but have drifted towards a more urban/R&B sound. This creates a unique sound makes Parkway difficult to categorize.

Parkway uses a mix of real drums and programmed drums throughout Glad You Made It. Some people might enjoy this, but to me, drum machines rob the music of power and edge. However, I did like the way the acoustic and electric guitars blended together. The way the band wove the acoustic guitars in and out with the electric guitars made the album interesting to me. They also offer plenty of cool guitar sounds. Parkway is a very catchy band, but I have always said that catchy can be good or evil. Everyone knows that '99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall' is a catchy tune, but no one actually likes the song. Parkway managed to get songs stuck in my head that I didn't particularly like. Their melodies are generally very repetitive and consist of very few notes. To make matters worse, they tend to repeat the chorus over and over again at the end of each song. However, if you can sit through that, Parkway usually finds a pretty interesting way to end their songs, such as fading out instruments individually to highlight a certain aspect, like the acoustic guitar line.

Lyrically, Parkway chose a lot of good topics. 'Don't Do It' points out how Christians have a tendency to belittle non-believers when preaching the gospel, thus detracting from their message (this song is my favorite musically as well because it returns to the rock driven grooves of Silage). Other songs such as 'Your Love Surrounds Me' and 'Are You Bored?' are very worshipful songs emphasizing God's acceptance of us. Even though there are a lot of good topics in the songs, Parkway usually does not venture very deep into the topics and keeps it on a surface level. The CD will be much more enjoyable for most people if they listen to it as a worship album.

Since Horne and Black made a lot of friends while touring with Silage, Parkway's debut album has several guest appearances on it. The album's first single 'Your Love Surrounds Me' features Jars of Clay's Dan Haseltine helping out with vocals, and 'Soothe Me' offers guest vocals by Charlie Lowell, another member of Jars of Clay. 'Need Someone' shows the skills of rapper KJ-52.

Unfortunately, instead of creating that perfectly engineered blend of music, Parkway is more like a musical stray mutt. Glad You Made It is a much smoother ride than Silage, but has definitely lost the gritty rock edge. The R&B elements are there as well, but not enough to make you bob your head and throw your hands in the air (like you just don't care). While Parkway blends many different kinds of music together, none of them is dominant enough to keep your attention.