Review: Parquet Courts, Sunbathing Animal

By Emmett H Robinson Smith

2013 was, for music, a year of grand-scale, bold statements from many artists. Deafheaven took widescreen black metal to new heights, prevalent alt bands Vampire Weekend and Arcade Fire took courageous steps in new musical directions, the latter producing a whopping double album from their efforts. Daft Punk altered the entire mainstream EDM landscape with their disco-themed album, Beyoncé surprised nearly everybody with her sprawling, unconventional pop/R&B album, and artists such as Chance the Rapper and Kanye West rewrote the rules of hip-hop. Conversely, Parquet Courts’ 2013 album Light Up Gold was comparatively small in scope and unambitious in its goals. The album was a fast, 15-track, 33-minute listen in which Andrew Savage sung/talked about things like being stoned in a convenience store and the mundane contents of his pocket.

            Parquet Courts’ sound lies somewhere between early Green Day, the Strokes and Pixies. They demonstrate hints of garage punk but keep it light with their peppy guitars and honest, often funny lyrics. On Sunbathing Animal, their sound is more realized, in part due to the more realized nature of the actual songs. Seven of Light Up Gold’s tracks were under two minutes apiece, which created a jittery, coffee-fueled ADD listen – which is not necessarily a bad thing. Even the song titles were cheekily abbreviated: “Yr No Stoner” and “N Dakota” to name a couple. Sunbathing Animal offers only two songs whose length spans less than two minutes each, and the tracks sound more like actual compositions than anything on Light Up Gold. For example, “Black and White” begins with a simple guitar strumming. Drums and bass gradually crowd the sound, and eventually hand claps and what sounds like a washboard complete the percussive arrangement of the tune.  It’s a half-minute intro, but for a band once seemingly dedicated to many instruments starting simultaneously, these thirty seconds seem like a lifetime. Feedback-drenched guitar enters just after vocalist Andrew Savage begins to sing. More feedback is added after verse two, as is pure static. These additions may not seem like much, but here Parquet Courts sound more like songwriters than they have before.

            Sunbathing Animal’s biggest strength is its lyrics. The album’s centrepiece, “Instant Disassembly”, is a comparatively down-tempo seven-minute lyrical epic that sounds like it should be included as music for the ending credits of The Big Lebowski. It features Savage confessing about damn near everything: “Mamasita, tie me loose as I flee / Oh, it seems that you’ve got a spotlight / Cast on the dark side of me / I feel a pain so acute like I’m being impaled / And I can’t breathe, can’t breathe, it’s hard to inhale.” “Instant Disassembly” is full of weighty verses such as this, and its musical repetition advocates the significance of the song’s lyrics. It’s a song made for multiple listens, and a plethora of interpretations are no doubt welcome. Compared to songs about being “stoned and starving”, Parquet Courts reach new depths not only musically but lyrically as well.

            This is not to say that the band has turned into a self-serious group; the tunes are even more head-bobbing than before, and the tracklist is arranged to highlight the musical contrasts. Take the fast “Ducking & Dodging”, for example. A tense one-note bassline and a simple kick/snare pattern accompany Savage singing about, in his words, “fear and feeling that you can’t be yourself and that you don’t even really have a home.” Although the lyrics occupy a similar dark space to its predecessor “Instant Disassembly”, the musical contrast is blatant – especially once Savage sings “That key you’ve got won’t fit this lock no more” and a Ramones-y guitar riff kicks in. The album has plenty of pacing strategies and musical distinctions such as this, and it showcases the band thinking of an album as one piece of work rather than a collection of individual songs.

            Sunbathing Animal is more of an album, in the true sense of the word, than anything Parquet Courts has created before, and the result is satisfying. The songs cut deeper, and the pacing of the album enhances the musical differences between songs. The lyrics are the focus on the bulk of the album, but this attention to text does not detract from the catchy punk riffs that the band is known for. It’s a personal triumph for these guys, and for the band to take such big steps as songwriters here, one can’t help but wonder what Parquet Courts has up its sleeve for next time.