Sympathy for Life, Parquet Courts won’t be outdone by nihilism
It seems obvious on first listen that "Walking at a Downtown Pace," the first song on Parquet Courts' seventh album Sympathy for Life, is about returning to some semblance of normality after a year and change of lockdowns. New York, the band's adopted home, was terrifying in the depths of the early pandemic, its uncanny silences interrupted only by frequent sirens, its bars and venues barren and vacated.