Efterklang are a group from Denmark who have been making their own unique blend of minimalistic, glitchy, modern classical, post-rock for 7 years. Not dissimilar to Múm, Sigur Ros or Jeniferever, who all hail from the more northerly parts of Europe, this is their fifth release and it’s for Yorkshire-based The Leaf Label. 2004’s Tripper is the only album I’m familiar with, so it was a nice surprise to find they had expanded on a sound that I was already quite fond of already.You listen to Parades and imagine a mountain, sunshine, coldness, brightly coloured buildings and clear springs that burst out of the ground. 'Mirador' sounds like a village fair, made up of a big drum, trombone, group vocals and some blips of electronic percussion, a nice freewheeling feel pervades the track. 'Him Poe Poe' is electronic twangs playing in a chord sequence, with strings and group vocals filling out the track. 'Horseback Tenors' is the sound of a parade through some small mountain village, sawing swinging strings, a martial drum beat and an e-bow effect on the guitar. 'Caravan' is an upbeat soaring track, with female vocals leading a group vocal performance, varied percussion and the strings carrying the song up high. You listen to Parades and imagine moonlight, blue stars, an unfaltering breeze, the heavy turn of the earth in it’s sleep and shale working loose, clattering down the mountainside. 'Mimed' is a short, beautiful and somewhat sad piece that makes use of piano and cello, dark blue in sound. 'Frida Found A Friend' is late-night introspection under the stars as memories of past hurt surface. It is harsher and more epic than any other song on the album, with feedbacking guitar, static-y electronics and hard hitting percussion. 'Illuminant' is out of body ambience, vocals sweeping and swelling from one speaker to the next, guitar with reverb and the sound of twinkling stars going off everywhere.The rippling group vocals and electronic washes and glitches that are present throughout the album give Efterklang their identity. It keeps these Danes from re-treading styles and becoming non-descript in a genre that increasingly becomes narrower and narrower the older it gets.The band share some quite similar characteristics to their compatriots Under Byen, in the fairytale-like quality that lays upon everything, songs are complex pieces that skew the traditional pop/rock style and go for something more interested in ambience, feel and wordless narrative. Efterklang seem to have found something much warmer and more hopeful in the time since 2004’s Tripper album, there isn’t just the freezing cold glacier they presented then, there is now also a community of people living in a town next to it. Efterklang, much like in fairytales, manage to encompass the wonder and fear of a deceivingly simple place on Parades, they show the light and the dark of a fantastical landscape. 82%Links Efterklang [official site] [myspace]