Album of the Month (July 2017): Parmalee, ‘27861’
Parmalee‘s 27861 is The Boot's July 2017 Album of the Month, as voted by readers. The North Carolina natives' new record received 80-plus percent of the votes in The Boot's July 2017 Album of the Month poll to earn the honor.
Titled for the zip code of Parmalee's hometown and namesake, Parmele, N.C., 27861 is due out on July 21. All four of the band's members -- Matt Thomas, Scott Thomas, Barry Knox and Josh McSwain -- have the five numbers tattooed on them somewhere.
"We’ve had that album title for a while; we’ve really been wanting to use it," Matt Thomas tells Rolling Stone. "We just felt like now was the time to use it.”
For 27861, Parmalee had to pare 35 songs down to the 12 that made the final cut. Included on the record are songs such as “Heartbreaker,” “Back in the Game,” “Savannah” and “Roots,” the latter of which is one of the group's recent singles. The band’s most recent single, “Sunday Morning,” is also there, as the disc’s opening track.
"Picking those songs for the album was one of the hardest processes we’ve had to do," Thomas admits.
Readers can see a complete track listing for 27861 below.
27861 will be Parmalee's sophomore album with Stoney Creek Records; it follows 2013's Feels Like Carolina. In 2016, Thomas told The Boot that the project is "definitely progressive from where we were with Feels Like Carolina. It’s like verse two of that."
Feels Like Carolina spawned three Top 10 singles. Given that success, Parmalee say, the bar is set pretty high for 27861.
“That record, we got a chance to see how it all happened, how it all works — how radio works with everything, how shows work with the singles coming out ...," Knox explains. "We’ve had a look at it now, so I definitely want to keep moving with it.”
Also up for the title of The Boot Album of the Month in July 2017 were Charley Pride (Music in My Heart), Rhonda Vincent and Daryle Singletary (American Bandstand), Sara Evans (Words) and Joe Nichols (Never Gets Old).
Parmalee, 27861 Track Listing:
1. “Sunday Morning” (Matt Thomas, Ross Copperman, Josh Osborne)
2. “American Nights” (Matt Thomas, Tommy Cecil, Jay Brunswick, Frank Rogers)
3. “Heartbreaker” (Brock Berryhill, Jay Brunswick, Jason Blaine)
4. “Like a Photograph” (Matt Thomas, Andrew Dorff, busbee)
5. “Back in the Game” (Rodney Clawson, Hillary Lindsey, Matt Dragstrem)
6. “Mimosas” (Matt Thomas, Tommy Cecil, Jared Tyler Mullins)
7. “Hotdamalama” (Matt Thomas, Tommy Cecil, Craig Wiseman)
8. “A Guy Meets a Girl” (Matt Thomas, Chase McGill, Jessie Jo Dillon
9. “Savannah” (Matt Thomas, Tom Douglas, Zachary Maloy)
10. “Drink It Off” (Matt Thomas, Jim Beavers, Lindsay Rimes)
11. “Barrel of a Shot Glass” (Matt Thomas, Barry Knox, David Fanning, Ben Stennis)
12. “Roots” (Jared Mullins, Ben Stennis, Blake Bollinger)
More of 2017's New Releases