Entanglements [PA] (CD - 2008)

Parenthetical Girls: Jherek Bischoff (vocals, banjo, ukulele, violin, accordion, trombone, bass instrument, double bass); Rachael Jensen (vocals, violin, keyboards); Zac Pennington, Sam Mickens (vocals); Matt Carlson (electric guitar, kantele, accordion, piano, prepared piano, Fender Rhodes piano, harpsichord, synthesizer, vibraphone, marimba, glockenspiel, percussion); Eddy Crichton (percussion).

Personnel: Mayumia Heider (vocals); Monica Schley (harp); Alex Guy (violin, viola); Paris Hurley (violin); Ki Johnsen, Lori Goldston (cello); Izaak Mills (flute, clarinet, saxophone); Jonathan Sielaff (clarinet, alto clarinet); Beth Fleenor (clarinet, bass clarinet); Morgan Henderson (clarinet); Stephen Lohrentz, Samantha Boshnack, Stephen Lohrentz (trumpet); Nelson Bell (trombone, tuba); J. Michael Walker, Jeff Walker (trombone); Paul Kikuchi, Nick Tamburro (percussion).

Audio Mixers: Parenthetical Girls; Jherek Bischoff.

Recording information: Tallin, Tallsman And Sons.

Illustrator: Sam Weber.

Arrangers: Matt Carlson; Sam Mickens; Jherek Bischoff.

As unsettling an orchestral pop album as you're likely to ever hear, ENTANGLEMENTS is beautiful in its lush arrangements and appealingly oddball in its perfectionism. Falsetto-crooning vocalist Zac Pennington and his able bandmates upend the guitar-and-electronics clamminess of their past two albums in favor of a quirky 11-song cycle of chamber pop that warrants comparison to Van Dyke Parks and Bernard Herrmann's VERTIGO soundtrack. Woodwinds and plucked string instruments augment standout track "Song for Ellie Greenwich" while "Unmentionables" is all full-blooded bayou brass and "Windmills of Your Mind" is one of many songs that quotes classic compositions.

On their first two albums, Parenthetical Girls played fey indie rock with orchestral ambitions, but on Entanglements they flip that formula, moving into almost entirely orchestral pop territory that only nods vaguely in the direction of any rock conventions. Having secured a stable lineup for the first time shortly before recording these songs, Parenthetical Girls use that stability to make some of their most high-flying, whimsical music. Entanglements's excursions call to mind the Decemberists' hyper-literacy (the album's credits even boast footnotes), the Fiery Furnaces' elliptical storytelling and mercurial musical shifts, and the Wild Beasts' vaudeville flirtations, but the push-pull between arty self-consciousness and passion in these songs are Parenthetical Girls' own. The band's collaborations with over 15 classically trained musicians make this some of their most polished, precise work; every note and flourish counts, and the songs' crisp edges only render them more striking. Everything is stylized in the extreme, and moods swing from mischievous to romantic to disturbing and back again with dizzying swiftness. "Avenue of Trees" swoons and cavorts like the soundtrack to a psychedelic Busby Berkeley musical; "Unmentionables" takes a detour into wittily ribald ragtime; and "A Song for Ellie Greenwich" tops its cockeyed chamber pop with chopped-up percussion and Zac Pennington's spine-tingling falsetto. Entanglements's arrangements shine on the harpsichord and brass-laden "Young Eucharists" and on the inspired cover of "The Windmills of Your Mind," where slippery strings keep the song's melody and paranoid tumble of words spiraling. The album's imagery is just as rarefied as its sounds are; "Entanglement" -- which seems like it escaped from a madcap silent movie score -- alludes to a Kafka quote. Pennington's own words mirror their elaborate surroundings, using internal rhyme and assonance to turn them into witty and often poetic riddles. On "Abandoning," he stretches "surname" from one line to "sir, her name" on the next; elsewhere, lyrics like "This Regrettable End"'s "Could those strings swell again/lest mine eyes well instead?" are self-referential and genuine at the same time. As dazzling as Entanglements can be, its polish and uniqueness makes it more polarizing than anything Parenthetical Girls have done before. At its best, though, it's such a strangely thrilling album that longtime Parenthetical Girls fans and newcomers alike will find it equally intriguing and rewarding. ~ Heather Phares minimize