Small Town Memories: Para Lia – “Hawk Hill”

Para Lia

“Hawk Hill”

What beautiful music Para Lia make, sparkling on the outside, but filled with sadness and regret down below.  Comprised of René Methner (all instruments and vocals) and Cindy Methner (backing vocals), the name comes from the Greek word for beach or coast, portraying as all oceans do something deep and mysterious.  The song, “Hawk Hill”, is actually about the reunification of Germany, as you read in this quote from Methner:

Hawk Hill is about my love/hate relationship with the small insignificant town of Falkenberg, where I spent my childhood. In German, ‘Falke’ means hawk and ‘Berg’ means mountain. But in fact Falkenberg has no hawks or mountains. The words ‘Hawk Hill Lane’ popped into my head one day while working on a guitar riff – it was a ‘Penny Lane’ moment, reminding me of the street I walked down every day to go to school. The vocals reflect today’s view on a town with the same fate as many small towns in rural East Germany,“ says René Methner.

“After big political changes in early 90’s Germany, many jobs were lost, youth moved out, schools and cultural centres closed, the cash flow stopped and small towns like Falkenberg fell dormant – kind of like a dead end street. You still can smell the fragrance of the past. Both Cindy and I grew up in Falkenberg and even lived on the same street, but we never met back then. We met years later and understood that we’ve walked the same streets and shared the same roots – a great good omen for walking hand in hand into the future.”

And now, Para Lia is facing as great of a future as Germany is now.  This is great, deep, mysterious music.  The whole mini EP is like that.  This is a great band with a great future.