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Parts & Labor Return With “Haunted Limbs,” Their Sharpest Reentry Point Yet
Parts & Labor’s “Haunted Limbs” offers a direct, hard-hitting entry point into their first album in 15 years, balancing reunion-era reflection with the band’s signature collision of noise and hook-driven rock.
For a band that once made blown-out noise feel oddly anthemic, Parts & Labor have lost none of their core trick: bury the melodies in distortion, then let them punch through anyway. The New York trio built its reputation in the 2000s on serrated synth tones, overloaded drums, and songs that still landed like big rock singalongs. After a 2012 farewell show and more than a decade of silence, they’re back sounding less like a nostalgia act than a band picking up unfinished business.
The comeback centers on Set Of All Sets, a 79-minute album due July 10 via Ernest Jenning, and their first full-length in 15 years. The first preview, “Endless Cycle”, was a four-part, 20-minute piece that made clear they weren’t returning with half measures. But if that track felt intentionally demanding, “Haunted Limbs” functions as a cleaner way in: shorter, harder, and built around a direct, fists-up momentum that recalls the most immediate moments of their catalog.
Drummer Christopher Weingarten, long one of the group’s defining forces, shares drum duties on the album with Joe Wong, and “Haunted Limbs” makes that dual-percussion setup count. The rhythm section is relentless without turning muddy, while Dan Friel and BJ Warshaw stack buzzing synth lines and guitar into something that feels both mechanical and emotional. Strip away the electronic abrasion and there’s a classic rock skeleton underneath; keep it in, and it’s unmistakably Parts & Labor.
Friel has framed the song around the album’s wider concern with utopian thinking and the practical mess of trying to build anything lasting. In his words, the line “It haunts us like a limb we haven’t grown yet” captures both the political and personal angle, including the strange process of restarting a band after 15 years. That tension is what gives the track weight: it isn’t just a reunion single, it’s a song about what reunion actually feels like when memory and momentum don’t quite align.
Within the current wave of legacy indie acts returning to active duty, Parts & Labor stand out because they haven’t softened their edges to fit the moment. “Haunted Limbs” argues that their old formula still works, but more importantly, that they can still push it somewhere new.
Set Of All Sets arrives 7/10 on Ernest Jenning.
