It's hard for me to think of a band with as many must-have records as Parquet Courts, every album since their debut has a special place in my heart and none more-so than Sunbathing Animal (thanks to a wee-bit of teenage nostalgia). Sunbathing Animal is a roller coaster you can't get off that leans on a heavy range of influences. If you're looking for something "new," you aren't going to find it here, and that's totally okay. Parquet Courts used the past to write their own version of the present and drew a lot of attention while doing so. - Hunter
Following Parquet Courts monumental Light Up Gold is reflected in ways expected and not with Sunbathing Animal its sharper, harder follow up, due on Rough Trade Records. Following their quietly released 2011 debut American Specialties, Light Up Gold caught the ears of everyone paying even a little bit of attention, garnering glowing reviews across the board for its weird colours and raw energy, saturated punk songs that offered crystal clear lyrical snapshots of city life. It was immediately memorable, a vivid portrait of ragged days, listlessness, aimlessness and urgency, broadcast with the intimacy of hearing a stranger's thoughts as you passed them on the street. As it goes with these things, the band went on tour for a short eternity, spending most of 2013 on the road, their sound growing more direct in the process and their observations expanding beyond life at home. Constant touring was broken up by three recording sessions that would make up the new album, and the time spent in transit comes through in repeated lyrical themes of displacement, doubt and situational captivity. To be sure, Sunbathing Animal isn't a record about hopelessness, as any sort of incarceration implies an understanding of freedom and peace of mind.
Tracklist
- Bodies
- Black and White
- Dear Ramona
- What Color Is Blood
- Vienna II
- Always Back in Town
- She's Rollin
- Sunbathing Animal
- Up All Night
- Instant Disassembly
- Duckin and Dodgin
- Raw Milk
- Into the Garden