The Inflection Point

About that Parquet Courts album….

Rare is the album that makes you really think. Is it cool to think? Is it hip? Is thinking about thinking really where we want to be? The neuroticism of the 21st century has to be a uniquely modern ideal. I can’t imagine Washington crossing the Delaware, Cleopatra playing the Roman’s with a sense of self-aware thought, playing out 1000 situations, the “should I, or should I not” paralysis that modern humans build their boats with.

But this album; something about it really makes you think, and feel better for doing so. Andrew Savage is surely one of the foremost, current artistic polymaths this country has generated, but why? His voice, shrieking over 50 minutes, does little to leave you wanting more.

“I commit crimes, and call them mistakes!”

Yet I do. Lyrically impressive, sonically altruistic; this thing is everywhere, all at once. No reason a song like “Dust” should work, but yet here I am, running it back again. So cryptic and thought-provoking. Is it the artistic backgrounds or overall vibe of the album? Doesn’t matter: Dust is everywhere, sweep!

What sets this album apart from the other PC albums though, is the directness it sparks at times from a band and lead singer who have built a brand on being as low-key as any. The following tracks “Human Performance” and “Outside” are two of the better tracks here, opening the title track with this refrain:

“I know exactly – where I was when I

First saw you the way I see you now, through these eyes

Waiting to retry.

Those pristine days I, recall so fondly

So few are trials when a life isn’t lonely”

This isn’t the Andrew Savage and co. of the past. No, because here, they shoot for something more direct to the listeners ear; sincerity. The sincerity and message seem clear throughout the track listing; you can roam the world for art and pleasure, but it’s a solemn life when there is no Mona Lisa, no muse to share these pleasures with or inspire.

The above lines almost remind me of one of my favorite Strokes lines, jammed from Julian Casablancas vocals

“Baby don’t you be so mad because I barely remember,

As I try to recognize you with the eyes I saw you with in December”

Later in the Track Listing, as subtle politics shoot across on “Two Dead Cops” and “One Man No City”, the band tries a southwestern twang of “Berlin Got Blurry”, a masterclass of writing and concept from a band who knows all too much about Texas and the drug scenes of Berlin. It also offers another enigmatic, modernity fueled line about the theme from Savage:

“Cellphone service is not that expensive

But that takes commitment that you just don’t have

It feels so effortless to be a stranger

But feeling foreign’s such a lonely habit”

“Pathos Prairie” follows suit as a standout, and by the closing track, it’s clear that Parquet Courts are in an art rock league of their own.

If, somehow, Washington was a neurotic mess when crossing the Delaware, it might have been the most sympathetic trait possess-able at the time. A clear sign of one’s morality, a true thinker; a most ambivalent sign and scale of human performance.