Punk rock has always prided itself on speaking truth to power. Austin Brown, one of Parquet Courts’ two singer-guitarists is no different. It’s hard to explain exactly why Parquet Courts are so great, because on paper, they don’t sound that exciting. So it’s a testament to their immense talent that they really are that exciting. On Human Performance, they take all the anxiety and ennui of modern existence, add in a healthy dose of personal heartbreak, and turn it into whip-smart, hugely satisfying rock songs. Some of the ramshackle punk energy of Sunbathing Animal is gone, but it’s replaced by a world-weariness and a tight musicianship that can’t be beat, plus some of the most immediately appealing songs of their career
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=lRG3R2FmGlY
It is also an angry album. The song Two Dead Cops deals with an incident that happened in the Brooklyn neighbourhood Savage lives in, when two police officers were shot dead. “When shots are heard young lives are lost/ Nobody cries in the ghetto for two dead cops,” Savage sings. He is not being disrespectful, he says; it is completely appropriate that people do mourn the deaths of police officers, “but we don’t spend much time talking about the social sickness and relationship with violence we have, and how violence is so specifically directed at poor people and non-whites; and, living in Brooklyn, it’s something you can’t not notice.”
Bassist Sean Yeaton chips in: “My mom had plans to go to a movie with her boyfriend. I was on the phone with her, and asked how the movie was. She said she didn’t go because she was afraid of getting shot in the movie theatre. Not in a paranoid way; it was as if she was asking for a glass of water. As if the possibility was so great. It was so weird and dark.”
Two Dead Cops is a taut and thrilling song, the kind of burst of anger the underground has always thrived on. The kind of song that, once upon a time, set musical agendas.
Human Performance was released on Rough Trade on 8th April
The Fat Angel Sings 