Parquet Courts
WIDE AWAKE!
Rough Trade Records
No matter what they throw at us, these New Yorkers have reached a transcendent point where they sound like no-one but themselves.
What does a Parquet Courts song sound like? You think you know but increasingly you don’t. ‘Wide Awake!’ is like a sneak attack from a band whose devil-may-care tendencies mask that they are the most creative rock band on the planet. Keep a close ear for the moments the cool veneer slips. ‘Freebird II’ hides its pathos behind a dumb title and jolly progression. The hokey groove of ‘Violence’ distorts its existential crisis. ‘Wide Awake’ is insanely fun but its gang vocals convey a collective yearning. They’ll play pretty when they want to. And then they’ll lay down a punk-funk Minutemen-esque riff and jerk you around just for kicks. With this album they earn the adage reserved for the great bands - “always different, always the same”.
“Here they sound truly alive, impassioned and buoyant on their finest LP to date” 8/10 – uncut
“Chaotic, visionary and righteously pissed off, ‘Wide Awake!’ feels like the perfect rock record for the times” 8/10 - q

Tracklist
- Total Football
- Violence
- Before the Water Gets Too High
- Mardi Gras Beads
- Almost Had to Start a Fight/In and Out of Patience
- Freebird II
- Normalization
- Back to Earth
- Wide Awake
- NYC Observation
- Extinction
- Death Will Bring Change
-
Tenderness
+ exclusive bonus disc 'Wide Awake remixes' (while stocks last)
1) Wide Awake! (Danny Krivit Re-Edit)
2) Wide Awake! (Club mix) by Mikey Young
3) Normalisation (Collective Witnessing mix) by Mikey Young