This selection was chosen by both Gen X dad and Gen Z son.

Gen X dad says…

“Yep.” That was my reaction upon first hearing Parquet Courts. I was watching Pitchfork’s live stream in 2015 and happened to catch the tail end of their set. They wrapped up Content Nausea, the title track to their 2014 album, and broke into Pretty Machines from the same record. I was hooked.

The band started in 2010 in New York City. I’d heard them prior to 2015, but had never listened to them. Once I did it was like they’d always been a part of my soundtrack. Strange how some bands/artists hit you that way.

Side note: Band members Andrew Savage (vocals and guitar) and Austin Brown (vocals, guitars, and keyboards) met while they were both students at my alma mater, the University of North Texas. They were in a recording listening/sharing club called Knights of the Round Turntable.

Sympathy for Life is their seventh album since 2011. The band continues to evolve and tweak its signature style as well as experiment with new bits here and there. Much like their previous two albums (Human Performance and Wide Awake) mixes it up with relatively straightforward punkish bangers like Walking At A Downtown Pace and electronic detours like Application/Appartus. It all works pretty well. If you’ve stuck with Parquet Courts all this time you’ll find something on here to like.

Highlights: Walking At A Downtown Pace, Just Shadows, Application/Apparatus, and Pulcinella.

Gen Z son says…

The first time that I heard Parquet Courts ever was when my family was taking a vacation around all of Lake Michigan. As usual during vacations, we brought many CDs along with us to listen to while we were in the car. I can distinctly remember what two of the CDs were: one was the Plimsouls’ 1983 album Everywhere at Once, and the other was Parquet Courts’ Content Nausea. Upon first listening, I enjoyed quite a lot of it – from the spoken-word monologues of the title track to literally everything about Pretty Machines, it was something that made me think “Wow, what did I just listen to?”.

It’s no surprise at this point that a lot of people also like them – their last album Wide Awake was considered by many to be one of the greatest albums of 2018, and they’re also on Rough Trade, which is among the most prominent independent labels along with Sub Pop and Domino. Today I’m reviewing their most recent record, Sympathy For Life.

The album starts off on an energetic number with Walking At A Downtown Pace. Driven by a dance-punk groove akin to those on Wide Awake and a crowd chanting the chorus, this track is basically guaranteed to be great live. Black Widow Spider sees them performing their usual, but nonetheless dynamic and singular post-punk sound. On Just Shadows, we get an unusual time signature (might be ¾?), which I’m kind of a sucker for.

Plant Life and Application/Apparatus are where it gets interesting, however. These songs are both driven by instrumentals consisting mostly of synths and drum machines. And considering that I’ve listened to almost everything else in their discography, it’s certainly a sound that I didn’t expect them to try out on this record!

However, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Much like fellow post-punk legends Talking Heads, the band’s transition to more danceable material (to me at least) helps to expand their sound further and venture into new territory. Some may prefer their older, more fast-paced punk rock sound, and elements of it are certainly present on this record. But as Gen X Dad remarked, they can definitely work in nice grooves (see the title track from Wide Awake as evidence) and the record is filled with them!

Overall, while Sympathy For Life presents a sound I didn’t expect them to further build on, it’s still a solid output from them, and I’d like to see them further expand on this kind of style.

Oh, and I forgot to mention this, but I’m actually going to see them live in March along with Mdou Moctar, and considering what I said about Walking At A Downtown Pace, it’s gonna be one hell of a party…