Live Review: Parquet Courts, Blank Realm, Kitchen's Floor

Locals Kitchen’s Floor have long been mainstays of the Brisbane underground scene in different guises but have been strangely absent of late, so it’s great to see then back tonight and in typically damaged form. They exude a calculated sloppiness, but songs like Down betray hooks to burn peering through the molasses haze, and while they’re wilfully discordant at times Matt Kennedy’s slightly nihilistic purview makes for some cool rock tunes.

Conversely, Blank Realm have been playing swags of shows of late — as well as being squirrelled away recording a new album — so they’re in red-hot form, with their ever-present simpatico understanding taken to giddy new heights. Recent standards like the supercharged Acting Strange and delightful Reach You On The Phone still hold many wonders, but the true delight tonight occurs with the debut unveiling of two more new songs, both of which seem of requisitely high-standard. Dan Spencer emerges from behind the kit to deliver an awesomely grimy take on Go Easy, and they finish with a rollicking run-through of Working On Love complete with sweet bonus wig-out at the end.

NY indie icons Parquet Courts take the stage to a heroes’ reception and bring an adrenaline rush from the outset, You’ve Got Me Wonderin’ Now, Bodies Made Of and the frenetic Black And White barrelling past in an amphetamine blur before they’ve even had time to register. Co-frontman Andrew Savage is the band’s live fulcrum and spews more words in a single song than some singers would emit in an entire gig, but he’s unflinchingly erudite and delivers with complete conviction which in turn ushers a tangible purity of essence.

They reel the pace back briefly for the lazily anthemic Instant Disassembly before the surging Always Back In Town flicks the switch to overdrive, the claustrophobic Everyday It Starts giving way to Master Of My Craft which segues into Borrowed Time and the vaguely jaunty Careers In Combat. The four-piece are like a machine the way they intuitively lock into unrelenting grooves, drummer Max Savage and bassist Sean Yeaton bringing as much to the table as the Savage/Austin Brown vocal combination wielding the axes.

Songs from recent lo-fi release Content Nausea, such as sprawling southern gothic epic Uncast Shadow Of A Southern Myth and the urgent Psycho Structures, translate wonderfully to full-band treatment in the live realm, while Duckin’ & Dodging propels forward in an ecstatic surge and Pretty Machines jettisons hooks like they’re going out of fashion. The lyrics spit forth like raging torrents of strange slogans, only every grab holds up to close scrutiny as being intelligent and essential, Content Nausea’s propulsive title track hitting like a cavalry charge before they finish a breathtaking set with the singalong glory of Light Up Gold II which runs straight into the machine-gun clatter of Sunbathing Animal.

They file offstage never to return, because a set that good requires no encore — Parquet Courts have delivered once again, and to ask for more after that would be simply selfish.