Parasites – Retro-Pop Remasters

The Parasites may not be a name that you’re familiar with, but they’ve been going strong for over a decade steadily releasing album after album. Retro-Pop Remasters is a recap of the band’s illusterious career, a “best-of” if you would featuring fourteen songs completely remastered for their old and new fans to enjoy. And while the name may not be ultra familiar, the sound defintely is.

Retro-Pop Remasters shows that a band can stay consistent to their sound and style for an extended period of time, without changing to try and conform to the biggest selling trend at the moment. They can be so consistent that the album seems like it is just a cohesive album, rather than a selection of songs from numerous albums. It flows nicely, and despite the numerous member changes, sounds like the same band throughout (a big thanks to Mass Giorigini who re-mastered the album for that).

The album is a throwback to simple, fun, true pop-punk that isn’t manufactored for the sole purpose of creating a platinum selling CD. The vocals are rough, not polished and boyish; the music is more raw with a much more “live” feeling than most pop-punk. Songs like three-chord singalong, Ronnie Is A Psycho or Someday with the “bah-bah-bah” background vocals are easily compared to music greats Ramones; while other songs are similiar to more recent pop-punk trio Chixdiggit!. You can’t help but sing along with the catchy songs like Young And Stupid, Crazy or Hang Up, and you don’t want to stop.

Really, the album isn’t ultra-complicated or full of insightful lyrics; instead it’s just a fun, pop-punk album the way pop-punk was supposed to be played and everyone will find some piece of pleasure with that. The band’s been going strong for a long time, and I hope that this “best-of” is far from their final release.