PARQUET COURTS' previous album, the excellent Sunbathing Animal, wore its Pavement influence on its sleeve and made no apologies for it. Human Performance, appears to do the same with their other chief inspiration - The Velvet Underground.
The beautiful and mellow 'Steady On My Mind' could fit neatly onto the Velvet's third album; while 'One Man, No City''s chiming, free-form raga guitar solo replicates Sterling Morrison's style so closely the listener could be forgiving for thinking the man had crawled out of his grave and plugged in on a session with the band.
It's worth noting both these songs come exactly at the half-way point, making them more a concession to the band's origins, rather than a statement of where they are, for Human Performance is much more the sound of a band increasingly becoming themselves. The title track, fittingly, has a melody and rhythmic drive instantly recognisable as Parquet Courts - and not anyone else - with the dramatic chorus being one of the album's highlights.
Human Performance also offers more texture and variety than previously, be it in the greater range of instruments and arrangements; experimental fragments like 'I Was Just Here'; or the chirpy keyboard contrasting with spaghetti western guitar riffing on 'Berlin Got Blurry' Also satisfyingly present and correct is the band's idiosyncratic punk/garage/hard rocking indie (eg, the brilliant 'Dust' and 'Two Dead Cops' ) full of their trademark swaggering, cocksure, cool.
