With two chords and two chords only, "Stoned and Starving" refracts the choppy sound of 1970s post-punk bands like Wire through the drone-rock of Yo La Tengo, a combination of punk vigor and slacker looseness that makes Parquet Courts' Light Up Gold a worthwhile genetic mutation. But where Wire feared the shadowy giants of government, war and madness, Parquet Courts are tied to terrestrial concerns: They are stoned, and they are starving. Over five minutes, the song swells and recedes, adding guitar solos and shakers before paring back down to its mantra: "I was so...so stoned and starving." Like "Borrowed Time" ("I remember the feeling of the museless existence"), the lyric is witty and detached, but the delivery is poker-faced and the details-- "I was holding some wadded bills / I was reading that smoking kills" --feel suspiciously right-on. Just because you're above it doesn't mean you haven't been there before.

[from Light Up Gold; out 01/15/13 via What's Your Rupture?]