I’m waiting to hear someone refer to Parquet Courts as ‘Parket Courts’ – in the same way that the leading consonant in Xavier Rudd’s first name has taken on a gratuitous prominence, and that the parochial grudge matches between the Adelaide Crows and Port Adelaide, or Fremantle and the West Coast Eagles are described as ‘derrbies’.
But such linguistic pedantry aside, the adjectives ascribed to Parquet Courts can only be positive – how else could you assess the Marquee Moon via Modern Lovers garage sincerity of Bodies? If the amphetamine-fuelled juvenile excitement of Black and White isn’t enough, embrace the Circle Jerks-inspired, romantic beauty of Dear Ramona and give it a big sloppy, adolescent kiss. Then be gone with all that soppy stuff and head to the bar and get yourself some X (LA version) meets Beach Boys in What Colour is Blood?; if you’re still not happy there’s Eddy Current via Devo in Vienna II, and enough dirty garage-punk attitude in Always Back in Tow, to arrest your pathetic middle-class sensibilities and get you inspired to subvert the dominant paradigm like no-one’s ever tried before.
Is She’s Rolling supposed to be a love song? Or does it even matter when you’re locked into that scungy psychedelic beat and casting your glace to the images of drug-fucked Brian Jonestown clouds swirling in the sky? Sunbathing Animal is deranged punk from The Descendents’ spiritual hand; the fleeting Up All Night is the jangly pop song that spurned a thousand short-lived record contracts in the late ‘1980s. Instant Disassembly is the best song Dick Diver always wanted to write and Ducking and Dodging is where punk was in 1974 before Malcolm McLaren caught a glimpse of Richard Hell and realised he was onto a tabloid winner. Raw Milk is a stumble through the hazy sunshine of Sunday afternoon when nothing really makes a lot of sense; Into the Garden is lost in an overgrown field of feedback and lysergic confusion.
Who gives a shit how anyone pronounces Parquet Courts. But if anyone’s going to be dissing this record, them’s fightin’ words. This is some seriously good shit. Period.
BY PATRICK EMERY
Best Track: All of them. Seriously.
If You Like This, You’ll Love These: DEVO, EDDY CURRENT, CIRCLE JERKS
In A Word: Punk
