On “Berlin Got Blurry,” Parquet Courts sound completely dislocated. Today’s quintessential Brooklyn band is divorced from its East Coast crutch, wandering Berlin. The music sounds like American country as re-imagined by foreigners: all nerves, no cattle.
But Parquet Courts’ real strength lies in how the lyrics interact with the music. Andrew Savage is a razor-sharp writer, using the band’s boiling punk to get to the point, and quickly. “Feels so effortless to be a stranger,” he exclaims, “but feeling foreign is such a lonely habit.” Parquet Courts deliver each couplet like a punch line, but the humor feels exhausted, like laughing through a jet lag just to stay sane.
“Berlin Got Blurry,” recorded live in Studio 1A, also appears on Human Performance, out now via Rough Trade.
–Art Levy
