IN REVIEW: Parquet Courts - "Wide Awake!"

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After years of building stature as underground darlings, Parquet Courts come into album number seven willing to take some mainstream-leaning risks. Bringing on producer Danger Mouse runs the risk of twisting their sound into the same thick, soulful, M.O.R. rock territory as countless bands before them; that said, this rarely happens on Wide Awake! and, when it does, it's purely in service to the song. Take Violence, which features some stabbing keyboards but also has A. Savage's most frantic and biting vocal performance. Danger Mouse's fingerprints are all over the record, but Parquet Courts' restless and exploratory musical spirit rises above any same-ism that tends to be present on other records he's produced.

While there are echoes of the musical past here (think The Clash at their most adventurous as filtered through the lens of modern indie rock to get a head start), Wide Awake! is very much an album of the present; all manner of societal and political observations dot this landscape, and the album as a whole plays out like a plea for sanity in insane times. It's an incredibly smartly written album from a lyrical standpoint, matching the frenetic and varied scope of the music.

As much as they may be pushed to the mainstream (the album's undeniably infectious title track even earned them an invite to perform on Ellen), Parquet Courts have as much bite as they have soul on Wide Awake!, and the balancing act of feel-good music and think-first message is masterfully executed. With the current state of global affairs, to make listeners dance while questioning the things happening around them is no small feat; Parquet Courts don't just pull it off, they do so with their most confident, boldest, and best record yet.

May 18, 2018 • Rough Trade
Highlights Violence • Almost Had to Start a Fight/In and Out of Patience • Normalisation

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