What is it about Parquet Courts that’s had everyone identifying them as the indie band of New York? Basically, everything. The band first started back in 2010 in Texas before they got things really going in NYC, and then they released their first album called Light Up Gold in 2013. Ever since then they’ve been on an indie music rampage, releasing songs that are energetic and catchy and off-beat in a very DIY Brooklynish way.
But as their albums continued on, Parquet Courts continued to keep on digging, to discover another side to their indie sound, and they aren’t hesitant to seriously shake up that vibe. On Sunbathing Animal, their sophomore album, their sound continues to be exuberantly neutral and dry with edge. But on Monastic Living that was released in 2015, the band spices it up. They zeroed out their vocals almost entirely, while delivering an album that’s darker, grittier, and sure as hell a lot louder than their earlier songs, especially on tracks like “Elegy of Colonial Suffering” and “Frog Pond Plop.”
They released two more albums after–one that same year and then another in 2016 that showcases their super straight vocals that sounds more like a practice recording than it does a final version–but that’s what makes Parquet Courts so interesting. They’re unpolished, and their sound is the underground–almost like they’re constantly playing in a concrete box of a room with a ton of smoking hipsters with raging hormones (or at least that’s the hopeful vibe it seems they’re going for). And even though Governor’s Ball After-Dark seems much more their style in that sense, they’re probably more than fine with playing at such a major festival, too.
Villain
6/3
10 p.m.
$20