- Content Nausea is New York slacker-punks Parquet Courts second LP of 2014; this time they go by the band’s pseudonym Parkay Quarts, which they also used for 2013’s Tally All The Things You Broke EP. Word has it that Content Nausea is the brainchild of the two lead guitar/vocalists Andrew Savage and Austin Brown, with a little help from members of Jackie-O Motherfucker and Eaters. In a move that drips with more sugary style than it is filled with nutritious substance, Content Nausea was recorded, mixed and mastered in two weeks on - that old punk staple - a four-track tape recorder.

Comparisons with early Big Black wouldn’t end at the four-track (if I made comparisons); there is a uniform feeling to the drums throughout the album that suggests a drum machine, which wouldn’t surprise me seeing as Parquet Courts regular drummer Max Savage seems to be missing from the line-up. Austin and Andrew’s atonal droning vocals are interchangeable as always, eking out painful little ditties on tracks like Everyday It Starts, Psycho Structures and Insufferable. Alternately one of the two have a crack at stream-of-consciousness punk poetry on Content Nausea and The Map. The atmosphere Parkay Quarts attempts to create is clearly one of anxiety, paranoia and nausea. Job well done. Thing is, these guys virtually ooze cool; they’re based in New York, still use cassettes, have the aesthetic down and everything they touch is light-up gold. Parquet Courts are not testing their audience for loyalty, authenticity or even just plain gullibility with Content Nausea, they’re making art about being miserable and on-edge as the world changes. It’s not bad, because Content Nausea achieves Parquet Courts’ goal, especially evident in their depressed karaoke cover of Nancy Sinatra’s These Boots Were Made For Walking. Parquet Courts have something deeply sarcastic to say about America and if you don’t like Content Nausea then apparently you probably just don’t get it.

- Matt Hall.