Parquet Courts - Sunbathing Animal

Parquet Courts
Sunbathing Animal
3 June 2014
What’s Your Rupture?

4 stars out of 5

 

Sunbathing Animal is the second full-length by Brooklyn’s Parquet Courts. The spawn of a bizarre love triangle between The Velvet Underground, The Fall, and The Modern Lovers (see “Dear Ramona”), PC’s music seems at times to be designed for the boutique vinyl industry. It’s wilfully antique-sounding—at times one wonders if the album is a b-sides and rareities collection from some obscure late-’70s post-punk group.

The slow, drawn-out harmonica freak-out that is “She’s Rolling” could easily be from Live at the Witch Trials. The very next track, “Sunbathing Animal,” is something of a cross between Minor Threat and Spacemen 3: the speed of straight edge punk married to the meandering, brain-damaged guitar soloing that is often associated with an excess of psychedelic drugs. “Ducking & Dodging” and “Raw Milk” represent polar opposites—one fast and frantic, the other slow and hazy—in the VU-niverse (because this all comes down to The Velvet Underground, really).

Sunbathing Animal is a lot more well-thought-out that in might seem at first listen: though it seems to be an album made by traditionalists working in a genre that despises tradition, it’s not just about the faux retro. There’s more than enough content here to distract from the pretty container. A competent second step on the ladder to what could become a very important career.

reviewed by Richard Krueger