Parquet Courts - Dust

Parquet Courts have never been out to please. As soon as you think you’ve got them pegged, they make the kind of unexpected leftfield turn that many of their ilk wouldn’t even dream of. But such Kanye-level hubris is not always a good thing, and even the staunchest Brown-Savage fan found it hard to digest 2015’s downright unfriendly ‘Monastic Living’ EP. A mostly instrumental blast of experimental noise, was the band’s keeping schtum a sign that the prolific, ultra-literate motor mouths had finally run out of things to ramble on about? Not if ‘Dust’ has anything to say. Best seen as a smarmy wisecrack addressed to those compelled to clean, it’s a chugging sub-fifty word reminder of how well the band can hoover up the rotten sounds, smells and sights of the modern metropolis. It’ll also put a real downer on your weekend tidy up. “It comes through the window; it comes through the floor…’ is their blithe assessment of our struggle to evade life’s inescapable grime, no matter how many bottles of Mr Sheen we spray through in the space of a year. Backed with sparkling keys that suggest that fresh-faced 1970s garage rockers The Modern Lovers are still high on their list of influences, it’s a fast-moving and deadpan missive from a band on their best form when dealing in the mundane. Minimal but by no means boring, the first song from album number five proves that the dullest experiences of all can be a creative mind’s greatest fuel. It’s such a sweeping statement of intent, in fact, that you’ll want to give your brush’s bristles a workout as soon as you’ve stepped through the door, provided you’ve managed to nab that fresh bottle of Mr Sheen on the way home, of course. Scrub away!