SOUND BITES

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 o...

One of the most respected and prolific indie bands of recent memory, Parquet Courts have provided listeners with a steady diet of new content since their inception about five years ago. Their fitth album hit shelves a mere four months after a 2015 EP that followed two albums in 2014... you get the idea. Human Performance feels a lot more fussed over then previous releases, and the record's experiments and detours don't venture too far from the core sound. This sound, drawing equally from '80s college rock and punk, makes for an intriguing basis for a record, and Human Performance matches this intrigue step for step with impassioned playing and intelligent lyrics. It shows that, when they take their time with a project and give it the attention it deserves, Parquet Courts can be worth all that hipster buzz. April 8, 2016 • Rough Trade Highlights Human Performance • Paraphrased • Berlin Got Blurry