Therapists know things about the subconscious that others are even afraid to think about. Anthony Parmenter aka Tony has spent years listening to others’ fears, untangling the knots of others’ traumas, watching people struggle with what’s happening in their heads. Now imagine that a therapist also makes music. The connection seems obvious at first glance—but in reality it’s much deeper and stranger. When a therapist picks up a guitar, he brings with him an understanding of how human internal spaces are structured, how sound can work with areas where words have already grown tired of reaching.

Tony played in bands since the nineties, was part of The Bad Spellers, recorded songs in a barn where acoustics obeyed the laws of chance and wooden echo. Now he has a solo album, and it sounds as if all the grunge of the last thirty years was merely preparation for this moment.

“Transitions“—eight tracks that shatter preconceptions about what grunge should be in our time. There’s hardness here, ragged guitar walls, but they exist alongside psychedelic bursts, sudden pauses, choral layers that appear and disappear like visions. A therapy session under grunge: Tony knows when to press, when to release, when to let the moment do its work. The album is full of special effects, but they’re woven in organically—water drops, cosmic sounds, echo that stretches and compresses. It’s the feeling that the music exists in some intermediate state—between reality and hallucination, between the roar of a concert and a quiet epiphany at dawn.

The opening track “Go, She Goes“ begins with deceptive softness. The guitar solo flows, major passages create an illusion of lightness, air, space. But the bass line already warns—it’s ragged, nervous, dark. This is the calm before the storm, and Tony knows how to stretch this moment of anticipation. When the electric guitar bursts in with a buzzing distortion, the air truly heats up. The vocals are processed with echo effects, the voice multiplies, surrounds, creates a sense of being in several places simultaneously. Then calm again, light singing again, and this contrast works. The song resembles a party happening during a thunderstorm—lightning flashes, electric charge in the air, people dancing while the sky tears apart. By the end of the track it becomes clear:

“In My Bones” begins with a guitar prelude in which Spanish motifs, flamenco echoes can be heard. But within seconds the song transforms into an open-air rock festival where the crowd roars, guitars saw through the air, drums beat mercilessly. Sharp turns, sudden stops mid-acceleration—Tony plays with form, violates expectations. Pauses here work like memory lapses, fragments of recollections that fold into a mosaic, but this mosaic is incomplete. The track evokes nostalgia, though it’s unclear for what exactly. Perhaps for those moments when the fun was so unbridled that memory refused to record it completely.

The psychedelia in the album reaches its peak in “Holding Stones“. Guitar transitions, percussion, choral parts layer upon each other, creating a dense sonic fabric. This is an aurora borealis in sound—shimmering, iridescent waves that hypnotize. Tony adds retro elements here that burst in unexpectedly, destroying the chaotic structure and creating a new one. Those tired of predictable rock will find here what they were looking for. There’s risk here, experiment, willingness to let go of control.

“Dialectics“ calms after the storm. Guitar transitions sway slowly, creating an illusion of safety, icy calm under the starry sky. But this calm is deceptive—the choir enters in the distance, electric bursts remind of wind gusts, that the silence here is temporary. The song stretches, freezes, gives time to think. Toward the end a guitar solo appears, beautiful and melancholic, that escorts the listener further, leaving behind icy landscapes and shimmering stars.

“Of Granite, an Orb“ continues the psychedelic line. The sound here is melting, dissolving—instruments surface and sink back, the melody manifests gradually. This is a lake with pink water and neon iridescence, a place that never existed but feels real. Sounds freeze, become sharp, then blur again. If psychedelia makes any sense at all, it’s in moments like these—when music creates a space you can inhabit, even if it’s alien.

The final track “A Medley for Cortisol & Consciousness“ brings everything together. A potpourri of fragments—Brazilian carnival, slow tango, psychedelic flashes. Each fragment bursts in without warning, invigorates, relaxes, ignites, extinguishes. The dynamics change constantly—slow, hard, smooth, almost inaudible. The song ends abruptly, leaving a feeling of incompleteness, surprise. This finale is atypical for the rock genre, but it has a drive that works precisely because it goes against the rules.

“Transitions“ is an album that proves grunge can exist beyond its own boundaries. Tony mixes rock with psychedelia, electronic effects, carnival rhythms and creates a sonic world that feels simultaneously familiar and absolutely new. His experience as a therapist is audible in how he works with dynamics—he understands what music can do to consciousness, and uses this understanding without hesitation. The album truly brazenly goes beyond the bounds of classic grunge, leaving only assertive guitars as a reminder of the genre.

Tony paints neon fields, purple plants, pink rivers, blue oranges—fantasy landscapes through which familiar elements pass. Spanish guitar transitions, barcaroles, echoes of rock concerts, melting psychedelia—all of this is present, but in new combinations. Here comes to life what never existed before. Punks in jungles, palm trees next to glaciers, carnivals under the northern lights—absolute psychedelia. The album deserves the attention of those ready to listen to grunge that has ceased being grunge and become something else.

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