Debuting in 2011 with limited edition cassette EP release American Specialties<\/em>, I’m not sure if Parquet Courts knew they would be storming festivals three years on, and releasing their fifth (ish) studio album two years later still. I say \u201cish\u201d as their back-catalogue is eclectic: having already forming and disbanding outfits \u201cWiccans\u201d and \u201cTeenage Cool Kids,\u201d these New York City slackers finally rested upon \u201cParquet Courts\u201d and started as they meant to go on:<\/p>\n Music matters\/ More than ever\/ Free your brain and conform never!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n After releasing their debut full-length album Now, we all dig the repetition but the three Rs that Parquet Courts initially ran with has clearly made way for some compositionally more dynamic songs. Human Performance<\/em> is a wonderful snap-shot of a claustrophobic, tiresome, and high-energy New York life,\u00a0and the city\u2019s ability to create a specific human condition: the album includes the jolting, avant, track \u201cI Was Just Here,\u201d gloriously describing the band\u2019s disdain at their favourite Chinese take-away closing down (made even more poignant by the fact that the menu there was the cover art to debut cassette release American Specialties<\/em>). <\/p>\n Beginning the set with the punk-riddled, teasing and repetitive \u201cDucking and Dodging\u201d from Sunbathing Animal<\/em> as a great kick-starter, the band moved coolly into the first track from Human Performance<\/em>: \u201cDust,\u201d complete with an elongated and highly enjoyable noise section. The hugely satisfying sibilance of \u201cThe skull-shaking cadence of the J-train rolls\u201d and the lyric \u201cDust is everywhere\/ To sweep,\u201d set the scene for the deprecation of the landscape that unfolds during the set, and indeed throughout the album. <\/p>\n Title track \u201cHuman Performance\u201d smacks of Wire’s \u201cOutdoor Miner,\u201d and from the get-go, the movement of the crowd is frantic. Speaking of his \u201cdarkness\u201d amidst crowded bars, busy apartments and a weak mind, Savage’s line: \u201cIt isn’t gone and I won’t feel it’s grip soften\/ Without a coffin\u201d leaves a bitter taste. It finishes with another experimental and noisy interlude between this and \u201cOutside\u201d; perhaps a dutiful nod to their (in my opinion, hugely overlooked) 2015 release, Monastic Living<\/em>, which, as well as Content Nausea<\/em>, is left out of the set entirely. <\/p>\n The light show throughout is subtle and largely static, set off by a gentle, pulsating pink background rig; absolutely nothing distracting from the detuned melodies, cut-through riffs and chunky bass lines. The energy is high and the crowd is continuously jumping and wavering as Parquet Courts rage through a few more key tracks from the new release, until we reached the woozy respite of \u201cSteady On My Mind,\u201d where we’re all mesmerised: the central, warm guitar solo seems to dance off the crowd as comedic crowd-surfers pass constantly and slowly across everyone’s eye-line (it is a genuinely funny juxtaposition, as if the crowd is having to please itself during the \u201cslow jam\u201d interlude). Parquet Courts use this as a turning point and jam out a hefty eight short, sharp tracks from Sunbathing Animal<\/em>, abruptly bringing the crowd out of the lull that had begun to settle like the aforementioned dust of Human Performance’s<\/em> opening track. <\/p>\n The band don’t speak a lot, other than to say that it’s good to be back after having played Manchester for the first time in Kro Bar back in 2009, where they would have played under a different guise. They also frequently ask if anybody has any requests, and each time suggest joke tracks to which the crowd always give a whoop: \u201cWhole Lotta Love,\u201d \u201cWhisky in the Jar,\u201d \u201cPurple Rain\u201d and \u201cDancing in the Dark\u201d (the latter of which I would have thoroughly enjoyed).<\/p>\n \u201cBerlin Got Blurry\u201d is the penultimate song, perhaps the band’s only diversion from New York as they turn the attention to heartache. \u201cNo City\u201d is our parting track and with an extended frantic, and overdriven outtro of a pacing and rhythmic beat and an elevated snare, you know that the set has come to it’s natural conclusion. No encore, no lingering; just fast-paced and efficient. We’re spent. <\/p>\n Parquet Courts, Manchester Academy 2; October 10 2016. Debuting in 2011 with limited edition cassette EP release American Specialties, I’m not sure if Parquet Courts knew they would be storming festivals three years on, and releasing their fifth (ish) studio album two years later still. I say \u201cish\u201d as their back-catalogue is eclectic: having already […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":[]},"categories":[15,283],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\nParquet Courts are currently touring<\/a> until January 2017. Human Performance<\/em> was released on Rough Trade<\/a> in April 2016.<\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"