Almost Had to Start a Fight / In and Out of Patience - Parquet Courts

With Parquet Courts' sixth studio album, Wide Awake!, scheduled to release on May 18th, the foursome has decided to drop their first single, "Almost Had to Start a Fight / In and Out of Patience," and it's a fiery punch to the gut. When I saw Parquet Courts at the Grog Shop back in November not only was it a banger but we were blessed to get a first-listen to "Almost Had to Start a Fight / In and Out of Patience," and shortly after the show I was scouring the internet to see if it leaked anywhere because holy shit. 

Andrew Savage's fiesty and throat-bleeding vocals, the sharp and aggressive riffs and pounding beat clenches the muscles in your body like you're about to get into a fight. Like any good punk rock song it's raw without any real notion of polished production. That's not to say it sounds sloppy and is just a mindless head-banger. The transitioning deep echo of the drums in particular are fantastic, but what is really cool is the division of parts in the song as the romp of part 1 is distinctly aggressive like  "Almost ha[ving] to Start a Fight," but is able to smoothly coalesce with part 2's frenetic tone of inconsistency that alludes to being "In and out of Patience."

The lyrics convey what the music evokes, confusion and a heightened perplexity, that to Savage, is life, "If it stops I'm, if it stops I'm, if it stops I'm having a bad dream." There's uncertainty and a sense of chaos but there is a sense of humor to be had with that, as seen in part 2 when the back-up vocals act as a collective response, evident in the lines such as, "The MTA/(Took the worst of it)/Twenty-minute delay/(Wasn't the worst of it)."

A song with raw un-polished instrumentals, and lyrics that comment on the craziness of the world is the common recipe for this modern punk rock group, and another great song in the Parquet Courts canon.