Human Performance
Brooklyn art-rockers Parquet Courts have sometimes obscured their warmth under a cover of discord, challenging song structures and sardonic detachment. Their fifth album simplifies and purifies their sound to thrilling effect though. Whether they’re dovetailing or duelling, Andrew Savage and Austin Brown’s punchy riffs sublimate into the band’s poppiest hooks yet. There’s emotional engagement too, with Savage opening up his heartache and isolation on the bittersweet “Human Performance” and “Berlin Got Blurry”’s collision of thrumming post-punk and surf guitar licks.
Recorded over the course of a year against a backdrop of personal instability, "Human Performance" massively expands the idea of what a Parquet Courts record can be. They've been one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the last 5 years; this is the record that backs all those words up. “Every day it starts, anxiety,” began the first song on 2014’s "Content Nausea." Those were essentially the song’s only lyrics, but "Human Performance" picks up where that thought left off, picking apart the anxieties of modern life: “The unavoidable noise of NYC that can be maddening, the kind of the impossible struggle against clutter, whether it's physical or mental or social,” says singer, guitarist and "Human Performance" producer/mixer Austin Brown. There has always been the emotional side of Parquet Courts, which has always had an important balance with the more discussed cerebral side, but Savage sees "Human Performance" as a redistribution of weight in that balance. "I began to question my humanity, and if it was always as sincere as I thought, or if it was a performance,” says Savage. “I felt like a sort of malfunctioning apparatus,” he says. “Like a machine programmed to be human showing signs of defect.” The sonic diversity, time, and existential effort that went into its creation makes "Human Performance" Parquet Courts' most ambitious record to date. It's a work of incredible creative vision born of seemingly insurmountable adversity. It is also their most accessible record yet.
Parquet Courts' third album is a bracing snapshot of a band on a roll. Their music is not explicitly political, but Parquet Courts are definitely a thinking band, and a critical one.
As much as they might play it off, Brooklyn’s Parquet Courts have become pros at making nonchalance sound calculated. From the foursome’s Light Up Gold postpunk breakout to their side game as Parkay Quarts up through their mostly vocal-less, experimental-noise foray Monastic Living, apathy reigns supreme as the…
After a few challenging releases, New York stoners Parquet Courts are back on familiar ground with their accessible new album Human Performance
So far, Parquet Courts has shown little interest in straight lines. Rather, having released four stylistically diverse full-length albums and two EPs between 2011-15, the Brooklyn band veers all over the place, as if they're in a hurry to capture all of today's ideas before a fresh burst of inspiration sends them scurrying off in a new direction tomorrow.
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Strip away the fuzzy, stoner-psych walls of Parquet Court's 2012 LP Light Up Gold, and you’re left with infectious, sparse and clarified rock songs.
Parquet Courts have been busy; their last album, the three-month-young Monastic Living, was a strange, exploratory dive into the depths of f...
Andrew Savage works through tough emotions on the title track to the new Parquet Courts record. He questions his own emotional sincerity after a breakup and parses whether his reactions were the result of societal programming. Was he acting, giving a "hum
The album represents a significant step forward in terms of the band’s emotional range and melodic richness.
'Human Performance' by Parquet Courts, album review. The full-length comes out on April 8th via Rough Trade. Parquet Courts play April 8th in Brooklyn, NY.
Human Performance sees Parquet Courts sprucing up their sound – although that says less about any mainstream ambitions the fiercely DIY Brooklyn band may have and more about the fact their previous albums sounded like they were recorded in the kind of rusting bean can Daniel Johnston might have rejected on the grounds of poor acoustics.
After last year’s disastrous EP, Monastic Living, it’s safe to say that it was unclear if Parquet Courts was ever going to be what they once were—the whacky, creative and eternally interesting indie rock quartet that always seemed to churn out winners.