Parish – Rita

Thirteen years of activity and a fourth studio album for the Parisians/Soissonnais of Pærish, three years after the release of You’re In Both Dreams (And You’re Scared), a record well received by critics, in France as well as across the Atlantic. It must be said that the four friends have drawn much of their inspiration since their beginnings from cinema and American alternative rock, with a pronounced taste for emotionally charged guitars.

Written in the particular context of the COVID period, the previous album swam in a melancholy that was almost cottony. With RITA, the band shifts gears. After several tours, the desire to compose faster songs, capable of making crowds jump, became clear. The objective is straightforward: reclaim the urgency of the early days without sacrificing the shoegaze identity that forms the essence of Pærish. The result is rougher, more nerve-ridden, while remaining as intensely inhabited as ever.

Behind the controls, Will Yip, the band’s longtime collaborator and a key figure in American indie rock, is not unfamiliar with this effectiveness. He has notably worked with Turnstile, Code Orange and Title Fight, and once again accompanies the quartet in this search for a massive sound, where the walls of guitars never smother the melodies.

Guitars That Hit Hard, Melodies That Mesmerize

The tone is set from the opening with “Prince Of Darkness,” on which Loïc Fouquet, the latest arrival in the group, pummels his drums, enveloped by atmospheric guitars and the ever-enthralling timbre of Mathias Court. A voice controlled from start to finish, capable of staying lucid amid the sonic deluge, yet able to grow in intensity as tension rises.

This duality between driving rhythm and catchy melodies is found on “Vapor Cloud,” “What You Want” or “Wait For Dark,” which ride over you without ever leaving you behind. The riffs are incisive, the rhythms gallop, and the choruses leave a lasting imprint. Yet there is no question of sacrificing the misty layers: the guitars intertwine, blur and stretch into a sumptuous sonic thickness. Shoegaze is not just a varnish here, but a living matter that gives the album its depth.

Emo and grunge influences remain strong as well, notably on “Heal,” “Strawberry” and “Crashing In Circles,” where the power of the guitars combines with a skin-deep melodic sensibility. And when “Always Assuming” unfolds its nearly seven minutes, Pærish allows themselves a broader, almost cinematic interlude, without breaking the emotional thread of the album. A way to remind that behind this new urgency, the group has not lost its taste for atmospheres and slow-building constructions.

Because RITA is not only about making noise. Through childhood memories, nostalgia, and the fear of the creative flame fading with the years, Mathias Court summons that teenage spontaneity that led him to want to become a musician. A record finally traversed by a charming paradox: looking in the rearview mirror to better rush forward.

A Band Still Relatively Obscure in France

Despite years of existence and a fanbase that extends to the United States, Pærish remains relatively unknown in France. The band has toured more abroad, sharing the stage with Movements and Tigers Jaw, while listeners in Chicago, New York or Los Angeles already know their songs. This situation, the musicians explain, also stems from their positioning: singing in English and navigating between several strands of alternative rock does not always ease identification in a French landscape where labels have a hard time sticking.

That difficulty in finding a clearly defined niche is nevertheless also a strength. Between emo, grunge, shoegaze and alt rock, Pærish refuses to be boxed in. And with RITA, the band perhaps has its most immediate record yet to convince beyond its circle of insiders. The energy is there, the choruses as well, and the production gives each track a real live dimension.

Saint Rita is the patroness of desperate and impossible causes. But Pærish takes a stance against this reputation with an album that wide open the field of possibilities. More nerve, more direct, and still as captivating, RITA ticks all the boxes of a record that makes you want to push the amplifiers and find yourself in the mosh pit. The challenge now is to bring this momentum to the French audience: on stage, the quartet has serious arguments to break out from the shadows.

The article Pærish – RITA first appeared on RockUrLife – rock, metal, alternative, pop, punk, indie webzine.