The Scene

Across the course of about five years and three (proper) albums, Parquet Courts have risen from hipster obscure garage rockers to the finest indie band on the planet. Like, if you give a damn about modern rock and roll and you take that stuff seriously then you’ve got a couple PC albums on your iPod. Through the non-fault of being consistently great, while never entirely accessible, Parquet Courts are arguably a little too beloved – which you can read in some tired reviews out there.

Don’t ever let people tell you that you can’t have too much of a good thing because those people have never put their favourite song on repeat until it loses all effect. It’s like taking a word and repeating it to death, eventually it becomes detached from its meaning. I remember doing that as a kid with the word ‘hospital’. It started with me realising that it’s a funny sounding word which was followed by my repeating ‘hospital… hospital… hospital…’ over and over. And that then became ‘hopstital’ and variations. Point being that ‘hospital’ is a weird name for something. I got the feeling that some people wanted to dislike something of Parquet Courts’. That could have been a misinterpretation but that’s just what I was feeling. They can’t be this good that they never stutter. Writing the same review for every album must get boring.

And so this album was preceded in 2015 by their Monastic Living EP, which was refreshingly panned across the board. I’ve heard it a few times, I don’t hate it. But intentionally or not it sort of cleaned their slate and made way for Human Performance. And let me tell you people, it might be the best thing they’ve ever done.

There are hard, industrial grooves and there are sweet moments and melodies in there too. Sharp, biting lyrics and a sincerity within. It’s probably fair to say that they’ve never sounded more like the Velvet Underground in a few places but dammit there’s nothing wrong with that, buddy. These guys make the urban mundane sound righteous and rebellious, it’s anti-anthemic, intellectual post-punk slacker tunes for the shruggingly disenchanted. That expensive degree might not get you the job you thought you could change the world with but hey bro there’s always rock and roll.

The Songs

Dust – It’s a germaphobe’s nightmare to kick it off. Dust is everywhere, sweep. In behind the suppressed panic is a chunky rhythm and some slick guitar lines. Goes AWOL at the end and from there you’re ready for anything.
Human Performance – WITNESS IT NOW! One of the cleaner, more wistful tunes but with a raging chorus full of reverb and jagged rhythms. The mellotron break was a cool touch.
Outside – The third single, short, sharp and cheery but there’s a rise in the chorus that’s never failed to draw a rise as a listener. Great tune.
I Was Just Here – A slice of Beefheart for the road, the title section lasts about 15 seconds and the whole thing is enough to remind you not to get too comfortable.
Paraphrased – Always threatening to break out, this one covers plenty of ground in only three minutes. Teasing us with these unexpected hooks and roars.
Captive Of The Sun – Something different now, chanted vocals over circular beats and strolling plucked guitar lines. Very odd… yet strangely catchy.
Steady On My Mind – Is that a tambourine? And slurred, poetic words? Twinkly guitar and a reverberating kick drum? Are we sure Lou Reed didn’t write this?
One Man, No City – Six and a half minutes of a driving riff over some bongos and a rambling man paean to solitary life in the big town. The one time the band really stretches out.
Berlin Got Blurry – The first thing released and possibly the best song on the record. Straight-ahead and fast-paced, pining to feel at home. Love the twangy guitar plucks. Lyrics are top-notch.
Keep It Even – Tender and weary, beginning with a few electronic thuds and deliberately under-sung as the drums shift and the guitars weave through the wilting. Jeff Tweedy supplies a strong solo in there.
Two Dead Cops – Up beat and scathing. Overtly political too, very punk. Nobody cares in the ghetto for two dead cops.
Pathos Prairie – More of a shuffle and a singalong. Relentlessly marching, dragging those git chords along in case they fall behind. Sort of hits a country-punk note in an odd way.
It's Gonna Happen – Sparse, so sparse, as it starts. Echoes of voices and plucked strings float along like tumbleweeds on Mars. The last 25 second is basically digital wind.
Already Dead – Bonus track, plays first on the digital release. There’s a female voice that appears and starts giving spiritual advice, life in stereo and all that. It definitely catches you off-guard in what was an otherwise shouty mid-tempo Courts standard. Then wraps back around to that on the way to a droning close and some studio chatter.

The Vibe

“One of the things that people admire about Parquet Courts is the lyricism maybe being cerebral and not necessarily emotional. This is the moment when the scales are reversed a little bit.”

That was Andrew Savage as quoted in The Guardian. It’s a nice way of summing up something I was struggling to put words to for a while there. Whereas in the past the band hasn’t been afraid to do things that felt deliberately distancing, songs that grate for the sake of grating, here it’s like they’ve come fully committed to the idea of this album. I’m saying this as a fan: this is the most they’ve ever cared.

Not that they’ve ever phoned it in, don’t get me wrong here. I’m just saying that it is fair to say that Human Performance is slightly more… accessible? It’s not mainstream by any means, man, none of these jams are cracking the Hot 40. But the riffs are plenty and the hooks come often. And that thing about being more emotionally open is fair as well, with the usual stream of biting lyrics not coming at the expense of the feel of the song. Points are made but tunes still rock.

But, like, these dudes can still write a mean song. Especially Savage, who is as good as it gets in any scene these days. At a time when most of the best song writers in the world are from the hip hop word, Andrew Savage especially (not that Austin Brown can’t spin a yarn himself) is out there firing words of wisdom at ferocious rates with a guitar strap over his shoulder. I love me some Kendrick as much as anybody but I also love me my some loud guitar music so the better each is trucking then the better my iPod sounds. There are maybe three contemporary acts that can write lyrics at the level that Kendrick Lamar does and this band is one of them.

There’s an indie rock vibe, a sort of Pavement tinge to the band though that fades with this album somewhat. Again, Pavement is one of the greats and Stephen Malkmus deserves to be knighted but Parquet Courts, while they seem to have the same ability to just churn out wicked tunes, they’re also more earnest. Less of that 90s thing, less of the prevailing sarcasm and irony that was born out of the excesses of the 1980s. They don’t dress up fancy on stage, they don’t even seem to be performing.

But there’s one track that really ups the ante on that whole ideal. Two Dead Cops is explicitly political. Savage fair spits those words out in a way you almost can’t understand what he’s saying, yet even then the sentiment is clear. Anger, frustration, disgust. In a post-Beyonce/Kendrick society it’s not nearly so controversial to call out the cops for gun violence and brutality (goddammit America) but rarely do you get that stuff coming through so immediately. “When shots are heard, when lives are lost. Nobody cares in the ghetto for two dead cops.” For a band that has always been very verbose they sure know how to lay it down with passionate impact. That’s how poetry works, man.

The Music

Well, it’s quite a listen I’ll give you that for starters.

I mentioned before about PC’s run of top albums, they haven’t missed a step yet – although their first release, American Specialties, is damn hard to track down so I couldn’t tell ya. Mate, I don’t buy cassettes. I told you they were on the hipster spectrum.

But I lied, there was one misstep. Last year came that Monastic Living EP. 33 minutes of full-on industrial weirdness, it must have been amazing to make but the final product does feel like the concept outweighs the art. Like, clunkiness and dissonance reigning, mostly instrumental and short on the melodies. The two title tracks sounded like the kind of thing you’d hear ringing from your old Gameboy when you wandered into dangerous Pokemon territory. It was a deliberately difficult EP, which is fine in itself – not every album is Sgt Peppers, ya know? This one was a lot closer to Metal Machine Music or Arc. The critics review things in isolation so clearly they all hated it but it has its moments for those of you that don’t expect a band to customise its songs to your own tastes and ideas. I’m all for challenging art.

All the same, that lot will be chuffed to hear the Courts getting back to more definable stuff. There are songs on this record, like Berlin Got Blurry and Outside, that hit you immediately with their quick pace, sharp lyrics and catchy choruses. The more reviews I write the more I’m starting to believe that the best measure of a great album is how many times your favourite song from it changes with subsequent listens. Me, I’ve already had four: Berlin -> Outside -> Human Performance -> Pathos Prairie. And I’ll tell ya I’m fair digging Keep It Even all of a sudden too.

Not being a band to ever compromise themselves, there are a few more experimental things in here that aren’t gonna get that much recognition but why people would want or expect anything else from Parquet Courts is a mystery. Six and a half minutes of One Man, No City isn’t that grinding. It’s a catchy riff that stretches out across that time at a welcome change of pace. Paraphrased sounds almost like a medley the way it keep switching up. Songs like that aren’t trying to be the lead single but they take you on a journey within the spinning of the record that highlights the tracks that actually are aiming for that.

Some of the guitar lines have this semi-western tinge to them. The riff in Dust, the one in Berlin, there are a few of them. Parquet Courts may be distinctly New York but they have their roots in Texas so perhaps that ain’t a surprise – hey, they once (ably) covered These Boots Are Made For Walking. Still, it’s a cool little evolution. Likewise the production. Human Performance sounds so damn good and I mean sounds good. Somehow they’ve upped the prod. values without losing their iconoclastic garage-meets-art-school feel. People call them punk but that only fits if punk is just an attitude. The Velvets is where they really live. A dose of 13th Floor psychedelia, some Devo, maybe even a dash of Pavement, dare I say it again. Plus if you listen reaaaally closely in a few places, there’s a southern hip hop thing going on – though that was more evident on their early albums.

And no, pricks, they haven’t learned how to sing yet. Neither has Bob Dylan and he’s doing standards these days.

Revelations

“Ashtray is crowded, bottle is empty. No music plays and nothing moves without drifting into a memory”

Andrew Savage did the album art himself, what a champ.

“Dear everything I've harmed/My fault lies on my tongue/And I take it holy as a last rite"

"I began to question my humanity, and if it was always as sincere as I thought, or if it was a performance. I felt like a sort of malfunctioning apparatus. Like a machine programmed to be human showing signs of defect.” – Andrew Savage

“I don’t get out, I don’t have fun. Living like a captive of the sun”

“Can’t be quoted it’s hard to say/Paralyzed/Doesn’t move it just blinks its eyes/Paranoid”

That was a good idea about the cymbal overdub on the B sections.

“Nothing lasts but nearly everything lingers in life.”

“Berlin got blurry as my thoughts all hurried to you.”

The opening track joins the illustrious list of great songs about dust. Here are my rankings:

Believe I’ll Dust My Broom – Elmore James
Another One Bites the Dust – Queen
Diamond Dust – Jeff Beck
Dust – The 13th Floor Elevators
Dust Bunnies – Kurt Vile
Devils and Dust – Bruce Springsteen
The Dust Blows Forward 'n The Dust Blows Back – Captain Beefheart
Dust – Parquet Courts
Dust to Dust - Chromatics
Into Dust – Mazzy Star

(Ziggy Stardust was not considered because it’s a proper noun, while Stardust is ineligible because stardust probably isn’t dust. I don’t really know.)

Finale

If you’d asked me six months ago I’d have told you that Parquet Courts is one of my very favourite bands. Ask me the same question today and nothing has changed. But that’s not strictly true because it feels like plenty has changed. It takes hindsight to be able to say that this or that was a crucial album for an act but usually you can look at a singer or a band’s trajectory and say ‘now would be the ideal time for that breakout number one record’. That’s the kind of strategy that record companies have spent their entire existence trying to mine. But like I said, this was already a massively loved indie band. Human Performance is not going to catapult them into the mainstream, God forbid, and its announcement didn’t come as a stake in the ground. Parquet Courts didn’t have anything to prove after three great records preceding this. Maybe a clunker of a release would have cost them a chunk of hype in the wake of Monastic Living. Maybe. But really there wasn’t much at stake for them.

Yet Human Performance comes along and not only does it have some of the finest songs they’ve ever written but also – and this might just be me but I doubt it – it plays as the most complete record that they’ve made. The best, in my opinion. I never expected to say that and yet I’ve already had this one on repeat more than all but Sunbathing Animal and that won’t last. But those are all fantastic albums too – albeit lighter ones with nothing really to prove at first. What I think Human Performance does is it takes Parquet Courts into a new era of the band and that’s a bloody exciting thing. From album to album there’s been an evolution there to witness.

To put it bluntly, there is not a better band out there working today. Parquet Courts put all others to shame and Human Performance is the best album I’ve heard in 2016 so far. Although downside: I’m now acutely aware of how dusty my room is so… excuse me while I go open a window or something, get some goddamn air in this joint.