Picture Parlour – ‘Face In The Picture’ EP review: a debut that exceeds the hype
It could be said that Picture Parlour’s rise is fascinating, given that they already had a bustling bubble of hype around them before their debut single ‘Norwegian Wood’ landed on our airwaves. But in reality, they’ve simply been doing it the old-fashioned way, relying on great live shows and the word-of-mouth recommendations they cause to keep their name on people’s lips.
Now, as their debut EP arrives, no one can argue that their path to greatness, one marched by bands throughout musical history, is still just as golden.
First things first, when opening up the review stream, it’s incredibly refreshing and exciting to see that Face In The Picture isn’t just a lazy clump of their previous singles with one extra thrown in. Instead, this is an entirely new collection. However, for the cultish collection of fans they’ve fostered since their debut show at Brixton’s Windmill back in December 2022, this is the long-awaited launch of their live-show staples into their recorded final form.
It feels like an incredibly powerful and poignant move. The decision not to include their breakout singles proves that Picture Parlour is looking forward to moving forward. As Katherine Parlour sings, “How am I nostalgic at 24?” on ‘Ronnie’, it feels like there’s the suggestion that the band are acutely aware of the way a debut hit can hold you back or keep you trapped. But as they barrage forward with four tracks infinitely more polished and complete than their first, they’re making a statement that they won’t be one-hit-wonders falling victim to too heavy hype.
But then the fact that ‘Ronnie’ and ‘Moon Tonic’ have actually been around since the beginning, played at those first gigs that immediately captured attention, feels like a beautiful nod to the classic path they’re walking. The process of writing songs, gigging, getting applause, gigging more, gaining attention, and building slowly through that pattern is the one that most of the biggest bands in history followed. Long before social media or TikTok, that was the only way. The strange suspicion that hung around Picture Parlour as if they must be some kind of ‘industry plant’ proves just how far into the woods we’ve strayed and just how much we need a band like this to guide us back and prove that the path that’s built on talent and dedication alone still leads to greatness.
The release of these songs, which were amongst the first written by the band, is a statement that the seed of real potential that everyone saw back then was legitimate, and now, after some time to develop and get it exactly right, Picture Parlour are reaping the rewards having now grown into something bigger and better than ever.
They made all the right decisions. When a band gains attention as quickly as they did, the temptation is there to rush it through and release something quickly. But as they gave themselves plenty of time, giving these songs plenty of run-throughs around the live circuit or on festival stages, testing out what works and what does and pushing their sound to a more cinematic, elevated scale as they gained the confidence to do so – Face In The Picture endlessly benefits from it all.
The result is an EP that feels utterly perfected and truly representative of the group. The strings on ‘Moon Tide’ deliver the melodrama that Katherine Parlour’s swaggering voice always deserved. Vocally, she pushes herself to bigger, more characterful and charismatic places as the band seems to have realised that their strength lies right there in that nostalgia-dripped theatrical edge. The winding melody and tempo changes of ‘Ronnie’ move from a crooning beginning into a tense and bubbling exorcism of angst with expert capability. From start to finish, Ella Risi delivers anthemic guitar lines that deserve to be blasted out of huge sound systems on huge stages, keeping up the arm-in-the-air energy everyone feel for on ‘Norwegian Wood’, but pushing into more interesting places. The entire band sounds tight and massive, making for a release that’s at once both cohesive and on-brand yet expansive and dynamic.
Every single song is a thrill, either through the instrumental, the lyrics, the vocals or all three. The entire project is produced to elevate all of their strengths to a new high, and the sheer confidence and power that drips from it is undoubtedly the golden payoff that comes from staying on course, giving themselves time and building something special brick by brick. In short, Face In The Picture doesn’t just deliver on the hype, it exceeds it, taking every expectation and exploding them into something bigger, better and more worthy of who Picture Parlour are, always have been, and will be now these foundations are laid strong.
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