What is the best Parralox album ever?

We rated every studio album track by track

To find out which is the best Parralox album, I did the work and rated every single album track by track. I sum­mar­ized the res­ult in a rank­ing that you can find here. At the end of the art­icle, the val­ues are again clearly arranged, shown chro­no­lo­gic­ally in a curve graph.

A paradox: 150+ releases but only 6 studio albums

The Parralox cata­logue is enorm­ous! John von Ahlen makes music with devo­tion­al pas­sion in num­bers that would take oth­er artists dec­ades to make, and he does it along­side his jobs. I would like to take this oppor­tun­ity to express my utmost respect for this achieve­ment. Among all these releases, how­ever, there are only a few "real stu­dio albums" with ori­gin­al songs. The major­ity are cov­er, remix or EP releases. But here we going to find out what the best Parralox stu­dio album ever is.

The best Parralox album charts

6. Parralox ‎- Aeronaut

Release: 2015
Overall Rating: 3.68 ★★★★☆
Great tracks: Aeronaut, Solid State, Companion, Mystery, Somebody II, Atmosphere, Wrong Or Right
Weak tracks: Zero

One thing in advance: there is no such thing as a bad Parralox album! Even though the 2015 album 'Aeronaut' has landed in last place here, it is still more than good with an over­all rat­ing of 3.68 stars. The title track 'Aeronaut (offi­cial music video)', 'Mystery' and 'Companion' are my favour­ite songs on the album. The many mediocre songs brought the rat­ing down a bit here.

1. Aeronaut 5
2. Do You Feel What I Feel? 3
3. Solid State 4
4. Companion 4.5
5. Mystery 5
6. Somebody II 4
7. Together 3
8. Atmosphere 4
9. Wrong Or Right 3
10. Zero 2
11. Miranda 3

5. Parralox ‎- Electricity

Release: 2008
Overall Rating: 3.73 ★★★★☆
Great tracks: Europa, I Fell In Love With A Drum Machine, Eastern Wall, Sharper Than A Knife, Lovely, I Heart U, The End Of Summer
Weak tracks: (None)

It was a very good decision to call the debut album 'Electricity' and to keep the visu­als clean but rich in con­trast. With this, Parralox, as a still quite unknown band in the scene, cre­ated visu­al atten­tion and with the name of the album you already know that you don't have to fear gui­tar-heavy rock. The debut already shines with many good synth pop / elec­tro pop songs. The biggest hit on the album with the only 5‑star rat­ing is 'Sharper Than A Knife' in my opin­ion. Parralox hit the bull's eye with this one.

1. Europa 4
2. Black Jeans 3
3. Electricity 3.5
4. I Fell In Love With A Drum Machine 4
5. Eastern Wall 4
6. Sharper Than A Knife 5
7. Lovely 4
8. I Heart U 4
9. You And Me Both 3.5
10. X Minus One 3.5
11. Underground 3
12. We Believe In Electric Love 3.5
13. Factory Friends 3
14. The End Of Summer 4
15. Should Not Be 4

4. Parralox – Genesis

Release: 2019
Overall Rating: 3.89 ★★★★☆
Great tracks: Tears Of Faith (Feat Jane Badler), System Of Pleasure, Robots Of The World Unite, Revelation, Nemesis, Under The Skin, The Future, Resurrection, Hurricane
Weak tracks: (None)

The 2019 album 'Genesis' fea­tures two well-known guests. Jane Badler from the 80s series 'V' and Ian Burden from the band 'The Human League'.

'Genesis' is a catchy and 80s spir­it filled album with many vari­ations in the typ­ic­al Parralox son­ic uni­verse. I always love the subtle retro sci-fi sound effects that give the songs that extra pinch of nos­tal­gia. My per­son­al high­light on the album is the mel­an­chol­ic and some­what dark­er track 'The Future'.

1. Tears Of Faith (Feat Jane Badler) 4
2. Goodbye Berlin 3.5
3. System Of Pleasure 4
4. Robots Of The World Unite 4.5
5. Revelation 4
6. Sueño Latino 3
7. Nemesis 4.5
8. Cadenas de Oro (Feat Ian Burden) 3
9. Under The Skin 4
10. Reckless 3.5
11. Über Ding 3
12. The Future 5
13. Resurrection 4
14. Hurricane 4.5

3. Parralox ‎- Subculture

Release: 2016
Overall Rating: 4.0 ★★★★☆
Great tracks: Electric Nights, Key To The Door Of Heaven, Change Of Heart, A Question Of Love, Jupiter, Pressure Point, Overdrive, Last Year At Marienbad, Last Man Standing, Voyager II, Rocket Science II
Weak tracks: 86G

The 2016 Parralox album 'Subculture' con­tains two of my favour­ite songs by the band. Maybe they are also unusu­al, because they are not single releases. One is the infin­itely sad bal­lad 'A Question Of Love', which reg­u­larly brings tears to my eyes. This is mel­an­choly at the highest level.

The fol­low-up song 'Jupiter' is the second num­ber on the album and hits the same note. Two super emo­tion­ally charged songs for which you should be emo­tion­ally strong, but if you let your­self get involved, these songs are true soul healers.

1. Paradise 3
2. Electric Nights 4.5
3. Key To The Door Of Heaven 4
4. Gimme Back My Lovin 3
5. Change Of Heart 4.5
6. A Question Of Love 5
7. Jupiter 5
8. Pressure Point 4
9. Overdrive 4
10. Last Year At Marienbad 4
11. Last Man Standing 4
12. Voyager II 4
13. Rocket Science II 4.5
14. 86G 2.5

2. Parralox ‎- Metropolis

Release: 2010
Overall Rating: 4.08 ★★★★☆
Great tracks: Ancient Times. I Sing The Body Electric, Promised Land, Supermagic, Miracles, Acrimony
Weak tracks: (None)

It's always nice when a new album by an artist or band you like is packed with new songs. However, the main pit­fall is always that there are too many gap-fillers and unne­ces­sary inter­ludes, which tend to have a neg­at­ive effect on a track's track rat­ing. For some, the album exper­i­ence as a whole may be more import­ant than the indi­vidu­al songs. To be able to com­pare albums as object­ively as pos­sible (at least intern­ally), we believe in the track-by-track rat­ing and here it has often turned out that albums with few­er songs per­form better.

So I was sur­prised with the res­ult for the album 'Metropolis', which I thought was not that strong. After I took the effort to rate every single track, I had to real­ise what a fine synth pop / elec­tro pop pearl this is.

1. Ancient Times 4.5
2. I Sing The Body Electric 5
3. Love Is Enough 4
4. Miss You 4
5. Promised Land 5
6. What About You 3.5
7. Supermagic 5
8. Miracles 4.5
9. Acrimony 4.5
10. Machines 3
11. Failure 3
12. New Light 3

1. Parralox ‎- State Of Decay

Release: 2009
Overall Rating: 4.25 ★★★★☆
Great tracks: Beautiful World, Universe, I Love You, Isn't It Strange, Hotter, Be Careful What You Wish For, Moonwalking, I Am Human, How Do You Break A Robot's Heart?
Weak tracks: (None)

At the top of the rank­ing is the 2009 album 'State Of Decay', with five strong 5‑star songs and two songs that are close to the highest rat­ing with 4.5 stars. It is well known that the second album of a band is always the hard­est release. Can it top the debut? Does the second album stand out enough from the debut without being labelled a cheap copy? The pres­sure is enorm­ous. But 'John von Ahlen' has put all the love, pas­sion and cre­ativ­ity into this album. The res­ult is a fant­ast­ic synth pop album that has very few rivals in this rat­ing league.

1. Beautiful World 5
2. Universe, I Love You 4.5
3. Isn't It Strange 5
4. When The Walls Came Tumbling Down 3.5
5. Hotter 4.5
6. Be Careful What You Wish For 5
7. Moonwalking 4
8. I Am Human 5
9. Peter 3
10. Two Hearts 3.5
11. How Do You Break A Robot's Heart? 5
12. Time 3

All Parralox albums in a chart overview

Spotify playlist: The best of Parralox

In the Spotify playl­ist 'The Best of Parralox' are all songs with 4.5 or 5 stars in the rat­ing. At least when the album is avail­able on Spotify.

A beautiful Parralox memory

At this point I would like to share with you one of my favour­ite memor­ies in the Electrozombies his­tory. During our Australian hol­i­day in 2016, we were in Melbourne, among oth­er places. The only thing I knew about the city at that time was that Parralox is based here. After a brief chat via Messenger, John von Ahlen spon­tan­eously agreed to a meet­ing. I am still grate­ful today that he invited us to his stu­dio (Subterrane Records) des­pite his busy sched­ule and little time. Thank you for this won­der­ful meet­ing, the insights into new songs and an ever­last­ing memory.

What's your opinion?

• Which Parralox album do you like at most?
• Share your per­son­al album rank­ing with our visitors.
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