What’s Your Rupture?
Perhaps even more than the adjective the music writer’s best friend is the comparison. Some artists can find a loophole to defy it (umm John Cage) but for the most part any lazy or talented writer can dig one up whether it’s spot-on or not.
NYC-by-way-of-Austin quartet Parquet Courts have been subjected to more comparisons than most new bands and all with just one album. Here’s a partial list: Modern Lovers The Fall The Feelies Silkworm Guided By Voices Wire The Strokes Tyvek Pavement Sonic Youth… you get the idea.
If you blended all those names there’s probably a 33 per cent chance something would come out sounding like their debut album Light Up Gold (which originally came out last summer on Dull Tools). Spotting the assumed influence is part of the fun in listening to Parquet Courts who feature Andrew Savage of both Teenage Cool Kids and Fergus & Geronimo on guitars and vocals. So let’s do it!
The Modern Lovers’ rampant pace and sardonic ranting haunt “Master of my Craft”; The Strokes’ tight punchy stop-start rhythms steer “Borrowed Time”; and the hollow drone of “Caster of Worthless Spells” rings like Guided By Voices after only a 12 of Bud (each). Even the artwork smacks of cut-and-paste efforts by The Fall like Slates and Room To Live .
So in a nutshell yeah Light Up Gold is pretty rad.
