Oh another New York City band trying to catch lightning in a bottle like many before them, but this bottle wasn’t intended to catch lightning rather it caught fire and burned down the whole house.
Parquet Courts are not your archetypal New York indie rock outfit, while they share many influences with the city they call home, (brothers Andrew and Max Savage are originally from Texas, which is also where Andrew meet guitarist Austin Brown), and the borough they hail from within that city, they aren’t just a staid reinterpretation of the likes of the Strokes, Sonic Youth, Talking Heads, or Grizzly Bear, they are a more of a snarky, punky sound with incisive lyricism.
Having dropped two albums prior to Sunbathing Animals, the debut American Specialties (only released originally on tape) and the follow up Light Up Gold which had furthered the groups place as darlings of the indie rock scene. The bands success was thanks in part to them doing simple so well on the Light Up Gold album, and as such getting a larger release through Brooklyn label What’s Your Rupture? while receiving praise from the recording press, undertaking a gruely tour schedule to promote, and the charm that the band exuded.
So with the hype increasing and the band's sound up to the release of Sunbathing Animals being reminiscent of classic nineties indie rock with swathes of as Lawrence Maurice at Pitchfork called it “structural slackness paired with paranoid energy, topped off with a sense of wit that exudes book-smarts as much as it smacks of smart-assedness”, the idea we are sure for the majority of bands would have been to consolidate that niche by churning out more of this New York sound of years gone by, but not Parquet Courts. The band used the touring schedule they undertook to promote Light Up Gold as an opportunity to mine their collective influences and travel back to honor and reinterpret sounds and styles that had been important to them in forming the band.
The 44 minutes and 13 tracks which make up Sunbathing Animals are an example of pause, a band who are contemplating the world they are living in while generating spacious and contemplative soundscapes. The album is awash with the styles of great artists reinterpreted for another generation, the likes of the Cake which can be seen on the track ‘Dear Ramona’ with its shaggy and midtempo style harking back to the college radio from which it is influenced. Murky blues-like sounds can be found on ‘Raw Milk’ and ‘Instant Disassembly’ with the later sounding like “late-night balladry…which sounds like Pavement attempting and nailing a Van Morrison cover”. The album's title track is the most raw and raucous offering on the album, a slice of pure punk and speed addled 50s rock n roll, with Andrew and Austin laying down a cacophony of sound through dualling solos while Andrew's brother Max bashes away on his drum kit.
Lyrically the band turn to the road for inspiration on Sunbathing Animals, but the songs aren't trad reinterpretations of standard road weary grumplings they show a reflectiveness, and a desire to provide a different viewpoint. Savage and Brown show that embracing weirdness can be a virtue as their lyrics become more stoned out, and embrace a more succinct, obscure, and laconic style.
Sunbathing Animals is a different animal to Parquet Courts previous offerings and it is this difference which makes it so important, so vibrant, and so amazing. It's the sound of a band growing and not being afraid of bucking the trend, removing safety from their vocabulary and insteading plotting their own course. The album is full of structure, which can reel out of control, but in the hands of these gifted musicians never really comes off the rails, it simply veers away and then snaps the listener back into a trusted and known soundstage.
We hope you enjoy
Stu
RRC
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