Sunbathing Animal
Parquet Courts’ highly flammable third album clinches their place as one of the best—and smartest—rock bands of the post-grunge era. They\'re capable of mixing psychedelic looseness with the muscle of hardcore (“Sunbathing Animal”), odd post-punk experiments (“Vienna II”) with rambling, romantic ballads (“Instant Disassembly”), blues with Black Flag (“Ducking & Dodging”), and poetic visions with moments of hilarious plain-spokenness (“Whoever she might be going to bed with/You can read about that in her Moleskine,” goes a line on “Dear Ramona”). Students of history without being beholden to it, the band manages to synthesize about 70 years of guitar music into a strange, lopsided groove all their own.
The year and change since the release of Parquet Courts monumental Light Up Gold is reflected in ways expected and not with Sunbathing Animal, its sharper, harder follow up. Light Up Gold caught the ears of everyone paying even a little bit of attention, garnering glowing reviews across the board for its weird colors and raw energy, saturated punk songs that offered crystal clear lyrical snapshots of city life. It was immediately memorable, a vivid portrait of ragged days, listlessness, aimlessness and urgency, broadcast with the intimacy of hearing a stranger's thoughts as you passed them on the street. As it goes with these things, the band went on tour for a short eternity, spending most of 2013 on the road, their sound growing more direct in the process and their observations expanding beyond life at home. Constant touring was broken up by three recording sessions that would make up the new album, and the time spent in transit comes through in repeated lyrical themes of displacement, doubt and situational captivity. To be sure, Sunbathing Animal isn't a record about hopelessness, as any sort of incarceration implies an understanding of freedom and peace of mind. Fleeting moments of bliss are also captured in its grooves, and extended at length as if to preserve them. Pointed articulations of these ideas are heard as schizoid blues rants, shrill guitar leads, purposefully lengthy repetition and controlled explosions, reaching their peak on the blistering title track. A propulsive projection of how people might play the blues 300 years from now, "Sunbathing Animal" is a roller coaster you can't get off, moving far too fast and looping into eternity. Much as Light Up Gold and the subsequent EP Tally All The Things That You Broke offered a uniquely tattered perspective on everyday city life, Sunbathing Animal applies the same layered thoughts and sprawling noise to more cerebral, inward- looking themes. While heightened in its heaviness and mania, the album also represents a huge leap forward in terms of songwriting and vision. Still rooted firmly in the unshackled exploration and bombastic playing of their earlier work,everything here is amplified in its lucidity and intent. The songs wander through threads of blurry brilliance, exhaustion and fury at the hilt of every note. Parquet Courts remain, Austin Brown, A. Savage, Sean Yeaton, and M. Savage.
On Parquet Courts' third and best album of whip-smart rock revivalism, the Brooklyn quartet continue to expand their musical horizons. The impeccably structured Sunbathing Animal calls back to their Texan roots, its wide-open sprawl freed of the band's explicitly urban trappings.
2012’s Light Up Gold wasn’t Parquet Courts’ first album, but it may as well have been. American Specialties—the Brooklyn band’s debut cassette release—didn’t exactly put its best foot forward. With Andrew Savage simultaneously putting Teenage Cool Kids to rest and relocating to New York, American Specialties couldn’t…
A worthy follow up to a fine debut, where these slacker punks go next is anyone's guess.
For four consecutive years, Parquet Courts has released either an LP or a substantial EP, and for four consecutive years,…
There’s an uneasy cheeriness in the way Andrew Savage utters “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe” towards the end of Instant Dissassembly’s naggingly repetitious seven minutes, ten songs into Parquet Courts’ addictively disquieting third LP
With their third full-length, Parquet Courts seemed at a precipice. They'd released a well-received album that had gotten national attention in Light Up Gold, and a blistering EP just a year later.
Album review: Parquet Courts - Sunbathing Animal. "Between the caustic riffs and searing lyrics there’s some damned beauty in Parquet Courts…"
<p>This third album ranges energetically through left-field punk roots and boasts a new, disciplined sound, says <strong>Nadia Khomami</strong></p>
Parquet Courts new album Sunbathing Animals reviewed by Northern Transmissions. The album comes out on June 6th via w=What's your Rapture and Mom + Pop
Parquet Courts' latest spins its tales of oddballs and outcasts atop an upbeat, garagey clatter, but could do with a bit more variation, writes <strong>Lanre Bakare</strong>