Brooklyn indie-punks Parquet Courts are back with their new album, Sympathy For Life.

Parquet Courts are exploring a new genre of thought-provoking rock on their upcoming album. While staying true to their unique sound, the band is be at their most instinctive on the follow-up to 2018’s Wide Awake. The record sees Parquet Courts critiquing late capitalism beneath jam-heavy instrumentals and heavy riffs.

“Wide Awake! was a record you could put on at a party,” co-frontman Austin Brown explains. “Sympathy For Life is influenced by the party itself. Historically, some amazing rock records have been made from mingling in dance music culture – from Talking Heads to Screamadelica. Our goal was to bring that into our own music. Each of us, in our personal lives, has been going to more dance parties. Or rather, we were pre-pandemic, which is when this record was made.”

Stream Sympathy For Life below.
 

 
The new album features previously released singles “Black Widow Spider,” “Walking at a Downtown Pace,” “Plant Life” and “Homo Sapien.”

Parquet Courts open with the absolute banger “Walking At A Downtown Pace. Then, throughout the tracks of Sympathy For Life they weave in and out of choppy fuzz-driven tunes and rampant experimental grooves. At the heart of this album lies improvisation, as Parquet Courts are at their most creative on this record.

They aren’t locked down by one genre. Throughout the album, they use punk rock as a blueprint while letting themselves define what their music means to them. Lyrically, Sympathy For Life is quite vulnerable and thought-provoking.