

Combining lean, spastic post-punk with the fractured charm of ‘90s indie-rock pinups Pavement, Parquet Courts’ debut is probably the only place you’ll ever hear anyone shout about Socrates in such close proximity to shouting about donuts. Opening with the whip-smart one-two punch of “Master of My Craft” and “Borrowed Time,” Light Up Gold reads like a poetry chapbook and sounds like an overheated garage, anchored by offhand beauty (“N Dakota”), jagged, surrealistic rants (“Donuts Only”), and the locomotive drone of “Stoned and Starving,” which turns a routine trip to the corner store into an odyssey of ancient-Grecian proportions.