Spectreview: Sam Parkin – Sam Parkin EP

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Folk comes down to a single voice as much as any given set of instrumental performances, and Sam Parkin’s quavering baritone, first displayed on his debut collection of demos back in 2017, fits that role snugly. His self-titled EP ups the production factor, but not so much that it disturbs the kind of controlled environment made Demo so originally compelling. The EP thrums with a curiously quiet energy, steadily pulsing with life without ever overwhelming the senses. Parkin’s winding melodies are decidedly similar to the architectural psych-folk  arrangements of Grizzly Bear’s, and vocally one could certainly make comparisons to that band’s Daniel Rossen, but Sam Parkin carries no such ostentatiousness. Instead, there’s simply voice and melody, just traditional instrumentation with an occasional splash of violin. While part of appreciating “psych”-leaning music is reveling in its excess, there’s a refreshing simplicity to Parkin’s arrangements that keep them from being carried by production crutches. “Tales Too Tall,” the fleetest of foot out of the bunch, has every right to blast off into space, but the restraint becomes as crucial to the nervous energy of the track as any wild dynamic shift. The chorus on “Human Imposition” is about as forceful as the EP gets, but the chugging of the tom-toms and the muted strums of the guitar don’t let the track veer too far off course. But Parkin balances the scales by touching up the more traditionally structured folky numbers, like the dusty waltz of opener “You Made It Right” or the elliptical “Takes It All,” with nontraditional chord changes and thoughtful hiccups of space. So far, in just his first two works, Parkin’s proven his obvious talent as a songwriter and his control over a dynamite voice, and it’ll be intriguing to see how these gifts take him into a full LP in the future.

Recommended for bus trips from Denver to Boulder (and back).