It’s time for an addition to the medical encyclopedias: Reversed Parkinson’s disease, named after quintet Major Parkinson. Although it does attack the central nervous system as the good ol’ PD, it does in no way impair the sufferer’s (or in this case, the listener’s) motor skills. Au contraire!

Coming out of Bergen, Norway, Major Parkinson sound like they’ve shared a room with Mr. Bungle and Primus at Kaizers Orchestra’s mental asylum, Dieter Meyer’s Institution, but have been released before picking up on all the others’ habits. In short; it’s weird, well played and, well, Major Parkinson.

A short “fat guy with a keyboard sound polluting the charter holiday in Spain”-intro leads straight into first single ‘Bicycle’, an excellent surf-punk-rock testament to the five guys’ state of mind (“They try to put me on the bicycle / They try to hook me to the white electric chair / And I was grooving!”). It doesn’t necessarily make a whole lot of sense, but it is very entertaining.

Major Parkinson have build a great reputation as a live band, and without having seen them on stage I can easily believe that no one has been lying about that. It’s always hard, nearing the impossible, to capture the energy of a live band on record, but Major Parkinson along with producer Sylvia Massy (Tool, System Of A Down, Animal Alpha etc.) come pretty close on this debut album.

Major Parkinson will give you the shakes, but it’s a good kind…

Genre: Rock
Who: Major Parkinson
Title: Major Parkinson
Label: Degaton Records/Musikkoperatørene
Year: 2008
Country: Norway
Language: English
DOWNLOAD VIA

Recommended tracks:
Bicycle – Meet Me In The Disco – 197