Touchstones come easily for Parquet Courts. While a lot of Brooklyn bands try desperately to shed historical reference, songwriters Austin Brown and A. Savage seem to revel in finding common ground with those that have come before them. Doing their homework, they’ve managed to flirt heavily with the noise-rock expectations of Sonic Youth, the late, angular punk of The Stranglers, and the slacker torch passed over from Pavement for their much-discussed LP ‘Light Up Gold.’
But there’s also something uniquely New York in how they’ve channeled their frustrations through punk freakouts in ‘Master of My Craft,’ or when they’re talking about nothing in the universal truths of ‘Donuts Only.’ This is part of a timeless link in a chain heading back to Velvet Underground, but cutting its teeth in the grunge noise of the ’90s. Parquet Courts placed in 77th position in our recent Year End Poll for Emerging NYC bands, and also thanks to their energetic and tight live show got a lot of buzz going last week at SXSW. See them play with Iceage, April 20th at Bowery Ballroom. – Mike Levine @Goldnuggets)
This song was added to our SoundCloud playlist of emerging NYC artists here.