New York City's Parquet Courts enlists Danger Mouse to produce it's latest album, Wide Awake!. The band, consisting of Andrew Savage, Austin Brown, Max Savage, and Sean Yeaton, set out to "explore new ideas in a hi-fi context" for this project, and according to A. Savage, who wrote a lot of the songs alongside A. Brown, inspiration came from artists like Grace Jones, Augustus Pablo, and Parliament, as well as '80s punk bands like Flipper, Big Boys and Minutemen, & The Dicks. The resulting songs pack in a lot of the "punk rock passion" that drove the group's earlier works, but the aggressive energy is balanced out by "lycial tenderness," which makes easily makes for one of the strongest albums from Parquet Courts. Listen to the band take on violence, economic inequality, white privilege, love, etc. over rhythmic, guitar-driven instrumentals. Highlights include: "Almost Had to Start a Fight/In and Out of Patience," "Wide Awake," "Tenderness," and "Mardi Gras Beads."

• includes download code
• fold-out poster insert
• music label: Rough Trade 2018

reviewed by rei kwondo 08/18