Parquet Courts

Wide Awake!

In its 13 tracks and just shy of 40 minutes, Wide Awake! shows perhaps the band's broadest emotional range to date with a healthy dollop of anger on display. There is rather a lot to be angry about right now, but Parquet Courts remind us to, at least, dance and have a good time, despite the impending apocalypse.

Unfortunately, Wide Awake! isn’t Parquet Courts’ best album. However, the correct conclusion here would be to repeat what Robert Christgau once said about The Clash’s Sandinista: “if this is their worst - which it is, I think - they must be, er, the world's greatest rock and roll band.” On this evidence, Parquet Courts deserve similar plaudits.

Wide Awake! is a letter-perfect musical contemplation of modern times, where social uprisings are actually affecting positive change. It's urgent and potent music that's thought-provoking and danceable, and whose rage is measured by a pointed optimism

Truly, Wide Awake! is a success all round - the joyous sound of a band taking everything that makes them great and amplifying it, toying with it and producing something even greater.

Not only is Wide Awake! better performed and written than any Parquet Courts album thus far, but on it the band consistently manages to make interesting artistic statements on some very difficult topics.

That ability for them to effortlessly switch between their influences - whether that’s hardcore, Minutemen or Talking Heads - while also sounding unlike anyone else is why Parquet Courts remain one of the most interesting indie acts around.

'Wide Awake!' is a bold step for Parquet Courts - it's acerbic, acidic, utterly powerful and stands as a genuinely important album in the otherwise paradoxically timid world of modern rock.

We’re ultimately left with the feeling that Parquet Courts are fighting their way through life on Wide Awake!; battling ignorance, standing up against inequality, staving off depression – and they want you to join them in their struggle. Their vocal frustrations make perfect fodder for their post-punk blasts, and in combination they add up to some of the most invigorating music currently being created, making Wide Awake! a valuable and vital call to arms.

Moving through righteous anger to introspection and eventually melancholic hope ... Wide Awake! is a full arc of an album, one that captures both Parquet Courts’ usual keyed-up exasperation and their new, hard-earned optimism.

With Wide Awake!, Parquet Courts treats both figurative and literal forward motion as a cathartic act.