Parquet Courts, The Laundry

Since forming in 2010, Parquet Courts have won innumerable comparisons to US indie-rock originators like Pavement and Dinosaur Jr. In turn, they’ve been hailed as revivalist torch-bearers, and decried as inexcusably derivative.

Especially on their first album, American Specialties, these comparisons are understandable; with lyrics about youthful fecklessness and arrangements to match, the influence of slacker-rock is hard to ignore. However, such comparisons also do the band a disservice, flattening out much of what is distinctive, and indeed enjoyable, about them. On their second album, Light Up Gold, the band developed a much punchier sound than their slacker predecessors; their rhythm section is unexpectedly tight, and the incantatory quality of Andrew Savage’s delivery transforms off-hand observations about youth and indecision into something far weightier.

On their most recent release, 2014’s Sunbathing Album, the band retained much of this energy, most successfully on the rollicking title track. Their innovation, though, was to offset this energy with quieter moments: to interrupt the frenzy of songs like ‘Ducking and Dodging’ with the off-kilter balladry of ‘Dear Ramona’ and ‘Into The Garden.’

Parquet Courts have an excellent reputation as a live band. They are due to play The Laundry on November 27, an opportunity for UK audiences to hear one of the most exciting and perhaps misunderstood bands of the moment.