Livin' Parazite: Paranoia Chaos

We're heading back in time here, back nearly twenty years in fact. With the recent release of the excellent "Dust" single from Sweden's Livin' Parazite, it feels right to reappraise the band's to date, only two albums, 1997s Paranoia Chaos and Down from five years later. The debut featured Martin Karlsson on bass, with guitarists Linkan Andersson and Ola Renkse, vocalist Larsa Bertilsson and drummer Geron Fritiofsson – it's a hard hitting, eclectic little beast of riffs and hooks. Opener "Live In Pain" romps out of the gates, guitars spitting, drums pounding – this is Swedish rock, but harder than we're used to. A slight Stone Temple Pilots edge rubs eagerly against a Megadeth like wall of guitars, all the while Bertilsson's expertly balanced vocals falling between gritty snarler and air-raid siren. The album's title track alludes to something even harder, the Pantera meets Mustaine rifferama suddenly turning about and adding a commercial side in the verse. It's a clever way to temper the mid-period Metallica chorus and boisterous bass work. From there "Uneasy" marches straight into the stomp-boom-stomp-boom territory usually reserved for Rammstein, although vocally things are less macho and chest thumping (although they are still reasonably macho and chest thumping – something the music demands). "Confusion" (which in the wrong hands this album could cause) does away with everything from before, the bass atmosphere from Ozzy's "No More Tears" lent to an Alice In Chains spiral of guitars and vocals.

Not satisfied with the constant genre jumping going on, "Cry Baby" adds a sleazy slither to the mix and some big gang vocals just to show Livin' Parazite can turn their hand to whatever they damn well please! We're only five songs into thirteen and already all the expected bases, a few spare ones and others no one even expected to be invited to the party, have been covered – and covered expertly. Where this band's strength lay is in the way they dart from style to style, yet still sound like Livin' Parazite; it may be a fair old stretch to suggest there's much original going on, but whether it's Metallica, Alice In Chains, Kiss, Megadeth, Ozzy, or Rammstein being brought to mind, not one of those bands would offer up the mixture this one did.

Impressively the rest of the album maintains the quality, "Kill You" a thunderous storm of drums and aggressive vocals, "Drop The Attitude" somehow a mix of grunge and Rage Against The Machine, while the quaintly titled "Bastard" closes things out by again by finding a thumping Bang Tango sleaze burst and nailing it to the mast marked hard and heavy.

Much of what Livin' Parazite stood for doesn't make sense, but it sure as hell made for an excellent debut album. More interestingly, it even shows that an era that seemed desperate to close off as many musical avenues as possible, could still spit out the odd band who tore those barriers down once more. Livin' Parazite were one of those bands.

Track Listing
1. Live in Pain
2. Paranoia Chaos
3. Uneasy
4. Confusion
5. Cry Baby
6. Braggin'
7. Frozen Mind
8. Kill You
9. A Different Kind of Livin'
10. Drop the Attitude
11. Intimate
12. Collaboration
13. Bastard

Added: June 11th 2016
Reviewer: Steven Reid
Score:
Related Link: Livin' Parazite on Facebook
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Language: english

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