Sympathy for Life

The sinister slow-burn of "Application Apparatus" and Tom Tom Club-worthy quirk of "Trullo" are further indications of their rude state of health. [Dec 2021, p.31]

While some may miss the band's more direct approach of previous records, tracks like Homo Sapien show Parquet Courts can still rock out.

Only two small missteps on an album full of excellent new approaches from the evolving quartet. Parquet Courts can also still drop in their post-punk sound, but for tracks like “Black Widow Spider” and “Homo Sapien” the grinding guitar riffs are augmented by inventive dance-laden beats, kicking it all up a level.

If not as instantly infectious as Wide Awake!, Sympathy For Life imparts the group’s unwillingness to stand still.

Instead of party-starting excitement, the band refracts echoes of Can, Bowie, and the Talking Heads at their most abstract for an album that feels tense and bleary, like a party that's still fun but has burned on for so long that the sun is coming up and things are starting to get weird.

In amongst the jumble of influences, trad indie-guitar Parquet remains: in, say, the early Go-Betweens-y Just Shadows, and the galvanising lyrics of collective consciousness - written pre-pandemic, but wonderfully inspiring for late 2021. [Nov 2021, p.84]

There’s really something for everyone here; they embrace winning ways but also dive into new realms too. Many bands have chartered these waters before, but nobody does it like Parquet Courts.

Sympathy for Life‘s strongest moments come in the songs that sound least like the Parquet Courts we’ve known before.

Compared to the rest of their catalogue, Sympathy for Life feels broadly accessible.

There is a lot to like on Sympathy For Life despite its unevenness. Savage A and Brown are acute observers, Savage M and Yeaton a really excellent and versatile rhythm section, the band’s willingness to swing outweighs its misses and when they hit Parquet Courts drop into those dive-y, sweaty clubs we’ve all missed.

Do they succeed at evolving their sound? The vote is yes. Does it outdo Wide Awake!? The vote is no, but that hardly matters. They’re such different albums that it’s easy to see those more attuned to electronic music digging this far more than rock guys. These guys are such creative songwriters that almost anything they put out is a pleasure to listen to.

A project as mystifying at it is engaging.

It’s not a complete reinvention of the Parquet Courts sound. Still, it sounds just refined enough, just imbued with enough intriguing and unexpected influences, that it ends Sympathy for Life on a resounding high.

It’s a rousing ending, and one of the few mesmerising moments on the album: it’s just a shame that the band don’t commit to one route or the other.

Sympathy for Life lacks the emotional vulnerability of 2016’s Human Performance and, despite some entrancing synths, the zany eclecticism of 2018’s Wide Awake! But the charm of A. Savage and Andrew Brown’s lackadaisical voices and chummy melodies haven’t lost a bit of their allure.

Sympathy for Life isn't a failure as much as it's just a step down from the indie rock podium. There's still a lot to admire for longtime Parquet Courts fans here, while the rest just requires some patience and a bit of unconditional love.

It’s different and at times more uplifting than most Parquet Courts albums, but it’s an album for the band, not for the fans.