PARQUET COURTS

Sunbathing Animal

Much as ‘Light Up Gold’ & the subsequent EP ‘Tally All The Things That You Broke’ offered a uniquely tattered perspective on everyday life, ‘Sunbathing Animal’ applies the same layered thoughts and sprawling noise to more cerebral, inward-looking themes. While heightened in its heaviness and mania, the album also represents a huge leap forward in terms of song writing and vision.

Recorded over the course of 2013 and early 2014, Parquet Courts’ second album Sunbathing Animal is both more of the same and quite different. It definitely doesn’t fall prey to any sort of sophomore slump, and it won’t disappoint anyone who fell for Gold’s hyperactive, hooky charms.

They take a more serious approach here, a little angry and a little weary at times. It still sounds very Pavement, very Fall, very SST or Homestead at its core, but Parquet Courts sound a little less in thrall to their heroes this time out, and it seems someone in the band did a little research on the blues (shown most obviously on their fiery take on the traditional “Ducking & Dodging,” but also in the drunken harmonica that pops up on “She’s Rolling”).

The slight adjustments to the sound and the attitude aren’t a problem, though; the growth the band shows on Animal is impressive and it’s good to see both songwriters, Andrew Savage and Austin Brown, try new things and stretch in interesting ways.

TRACK LISTING

SIDE A
1. Bodies Made Of
2. Black and White
3. Dear Ramona
4. What Color Is Blood?
5. Vienna II
6. Always Back in Town
7. She’s Rolling

SIDE B
1. Sunbathing Animal
2. Up All Night
3. Instant Disassembly
4. Ducking & Dodging
5. Raw Milk
6. Into the Garden