Parquet Courts
– Wide Awake!
If punk is dead, Parquet Courts never got the memo. Wide Awake! is less resurrection and more slap to the face—tight, restless, and unafraid to get weird. It doesn’t care if you’re dancing, pacing, or yelling back at it. It’s an album that knows the party’s over but keeps the beat going anyway, gritting its teeth through the hangover.
Best of…
What makes this album hum is its nerve. Andrew Savage and Austin Brown swap lines like sparring partners—sometimes funny, sometimes frantic, always sharp. Danger Mouse produces, and instead of sanding the edges, he lets the band sharpen them. The grooves are jumpy and wiry one minute, then deep and funky the next. You’ll find paranoia and sarcasm buried in chants and cowbells, as if Gang of Four got locked in a Brooklyn basement with Talking Heads records and a pile of coffee grounds.
There’s a political undercurrent here, but it doesn’t shout slogans. It side-eyes. It mocks. It turns apathy into art and asks what resistance sounds like when you’re jaded, pissed off, and still dancing. Wide Awake! doesn’t lecture. It provokes. It prods. And in between, it throws a few punches—just to make sure you’re paying attention.
Choice Tracks
Wide Awake
Funk-punk with a bullhorn. The bassline bounces like a brawl at a block party, and the shout-along chorus dares you not to move. It’s playful, angry, and deliriously catchy—like James Brown had a very bad day and decided to protest dance it off.
Total Football
Opens with a manifesto and ends in full-on sprint. Savage throws words like fists, railing against machismo, capitalism, and self-importance in less than four minutes. The band snaps into a tighter groove with each verse, then explodes like it’s kicking over its own soapbox.
Violence
This one creeps. A spoken-word rumble over a jittery beat, with Savage sounding like a late-night preacher breaking down society’s nervous breakdown. The tension doesn’t let up—it slithers. It hisses. Then it hits.
Almost Had to Start a Fight/In and Out of Patience
Two songs jammed into one anxiety spiral. First part? Panic attack. Second part? Existential rage on a caffeine bender. It’s a punk rock mood swing, and somehow it feels like the most honest thing here.
Tenderness
The closing track takes a surprise turn—piano, handclaps, and a melody that feels like redemption or at least resignation. It’s the cool-down after the chaos, the eye of the storm where emotion finally spills out. Not quite hopeful, but not hopeless either.
Wide Awake! is a protest record disguised as a house party. It’s twitchy, lean, and pissed off with style. Parquet Courts don’t offer solutions. They throw noise, dance breaks, and sharp one-liners instead. And somehow, in all that noise, they find clarity.