Parquet Courts: Human Performance

Locked in with the clutter, the dust and inanimate objects, slowly succumbing to a Fantasia-type cabin fever, you’re left in the mindset of being the king of your own box of broken toys. Parquet Courts have always been exceptional in expressing rambling, chaotic and stream-of-consciousness thoughts, but Human Performance brings it to a whole new level.

Parquet Courts took a year to record this album, and you can’t help but feel they didn’t go outside for the entirety of it. Containing less of the sporadic energy of previous albums, the band instead revels in an inner madness. The trade of energy for insanity ironically makes Human Performance one of the New Yorkers’ more approachable releases. Without the distortion and tortured squeals of instruments assaulting your ears, the music instead imparts a type of cabin fever within your own head with songs like ‘Dust’, ‘Captive Of The Sun’ and ‘One Man, No City’. While perhaps not Parquet Courts’ best album, this does mark an impressive step forward. Rather than simply expressing their own madness, they help bring out a little of your own.

So close the door, shut the blinds, press ‘play’ and let Parquet Courts lose your mind.

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