Album Review: Parquet Courts - Light Up Gold

When Brooklyn-via-Texas newbs Parquet Courts smashed it at SXSW earlier this year the hype machine resolutely described them as 'punk', but a cursory listen to their debut album Light Up Gold (not counting 2011's American Specialities cassette) quickly shows them to be a more 'spastic indie garage' proposition, owing as much to the off-kilter ramblings of early Pavement and the kraut-inspired rock of our own Total Control as any true punk forebears.

Pointless classifications aside, Light Up Gold is a fantastic collection of cluey, lyric-driven rambles placed atop beds of catchy, slightly-shambolic music – abetted by fittingly murky production – that perfectly suits the band's cerebral-but-ad hoc vibe. The disparate muses of guitarist/vocalists Andrew Savage and Austin Brown are easily distinguishable but complement each other well and give depth to the overall Parquet Courts aesthetic.

Nothing outstays its welcome – the 15 songs clock in at 33 minutes – yet nothing seems throwaway, with substance at the heart of even the briefest tracks. Whether the stoner wisdom of Donuts Only, the guileless Modern Lovers inflections of Yr No Stoner, the Slanted And Enchanted-aping Careers In Combat, the laidback charm of A Sioux, An Apache And A Mohawk or the motorik chug of Stoned & Starving, every song brings something to the table (and indeed there are plenty of references to food, or lack thereof – these guys seem hungry).

A rare beast that works equally well as light-hearted background fare as it does when being examined under a microscope, Light Up Gold is a fine introduction to a bunch of intelligent dudes living it large and dissecting the ensuing carnage for our listening pleasure, a classic win-win.