Light Up Gold is record-collector-rock for record-collector-rock-collectors, 34 gone-too-quick minutes of chin-stroking, bowl-cashing, amp-ruining, Socrates-dying-in-the-fucking-gutter punk. Parquet Courts are staunchly image-conscious about not having an image whatsoever, and on Gold, they perhaps accidentally dial in on that miracle middleground between art school and the CBGB’s bathroom, Malkmus and "New Rose".

What pushes the trio beyond their peers is a preternatural ability to locate the exact second when teenage kicks give way to a realization of their place in the world—the time when you critically analyze the deeper meaning of the junk in your pockets. The first 5:42 of the record, among the best 1-2 punches of the year, outlines the alpha and omega of their response to their life station: sarcasm and nostalgia. “Master of My Craft” blasts “Ex-Lion Tamer” through Jonathan Richman’s car stereo, with co-frontman Austin Brown’s manifesto sounds made via cut-up method from a publicist’s Linkedin account. Then a single drumstick click smash-cuts into “Borrowed Time”, on which Andrew Savage perfectly encapsulates inspiration arising from squalor—thoughts dripping on his head from the ceiling.

Then there’s the dopey majesty of “Stoned and Starving”, the “Hallogallo” of slack-jawed bakedom, barreling into an unknown future where you’re still high as fuck. It’s 2013’s “Nothing Ever Happened”, if everything actually did happen right behind you and you were too completely blazed to turn around at the bodega counter. “I don’t know too much, I just got the keys,” Brown sings on “Yr No Stoner”. Now, to find the car. —Eric Harvey