Wide Awake!
A brilliant collision of sharp post-punk intellect and danceable funk grooves. Furious, joyful, and relentlessly rhythm-driven.
May 18, 2018 · Buena onda tapes
A brilliant collision of sharp post-punk intellect and danceable funk grooves. Furious, joyful, and relentlessly rhythm-driven.
May 18, 2018 · Buena onda tapes
Clattering cowbells and a rubbery, high-stepping bassline shattered the band’s usual wall of dry, intellectual guitar static. By trading their trademark Brooklyn basement gloom for bright, sweat-slicked funk grooves, these cynical post-punk poets finally let their bodies catch up to their overactive brains. You can feel the physical heat of the room as sharp, angry rants about societal collapse melt into joyous, shout-along dance rhythms. It is a loud, colorful collision of fury and celebration, proving that a protest record can still shake the floorboards and make you move.
“Musically, it’s easily their most expansive set to date, with squally punk (Total Football) rubbing up against 60s bubblegum pop (Mardi Gras Beads), woozy psychedelia (Back to Earth) and the clattering early-00s punk-funk of Wide Awake”Read review
“An album of joyfully absurd, danceable rock music. It is straightforward but alien, simple but endlessly referential”Read review
“The proclamation that this is currently the world’s most exciting rock band was suggested a couple years ago, now Parquet Courts have claimed the throne”Read review
“The album in which America’s most consistent punk band once again distill their myriad influences”
“Those who are open to hearing the band take on a variety of styles and bend them to their will should be very happy with Wide Awake! Those who want the band to crank out an album of just bitter, bopping punk may have to wait until next time.”Read review
“In range, energy and freshness, this may be their best album yet”Read review
“Wide Awake is certainly not their best, but it is their most wide ranging and as such, it could just be one that splits the hardcore fanbase right down the middle”Read review
“With Wide Awake!, Parquet Courts treats both figurative and literal forward motion as a cathartic act”Read review
“Parquet Courts are a magical band that make you feel everything all at once: youth, nostalgia, happiness, desolation, flying high, running low”Read review
“The funkiest and sweetest Parquet Courts set yet, trading off some of their trademark guitar fireworks for danceable jams”Read review
“This is the most diverse record put out under the Parquet Courts banner – not least because it contains a selection-box of lyrical interests and musical pursuits that include the revolutionary Dutch football method on “Total Football”, to the G-Funk-via-The Stranglers vamp of “Violence””Read review
“Still sounds like Parquet Courts, but it’s a far more colourful, warmer and bolder version”Read review
How does Wide Awake! sound next to the rest of Parquet Courts's catalogue?
The band trades their usual dry, insular basement air for a punchy, studio polished clarity that allows the basslines to bounce with an impossibly warm, fluid groove.
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