Morgan's Pier, July 24 - Parquet Courts (Preview)

Word clawing through the filtered commentary on last weekend's Pitchfork Music Festival were that Parquet Courts - the New York-via-Texas DIY punk four-piece still reeling from January's debut Light Up Gold - were stoically efficient. Chicago Tribune manic music mind Greg Kot noted the band's performance as furiously quick, saying;

Parquet Courts piling songs together like bumper cars. Frantic pace then brief silence then back in. Yes #p4k
— Greg Kot (@gregkot) July 20, 2013

For some, the lack of flash may be too much. But for the band that so quickly found themselves daily on indie XM radio stations after only months of steadily raising their name from the cavernous swarm of fellow New York garage groups, Parquet Courts are striving with marvelous efficiency.

Kot later noted in his short-term study of the band that the guitar play leaves trails of glory from former New York garage icons Television. Obviously comparing any newfound flavors of the scene to the illustrious talents that put together Marquee Moon is fairly high, but it does give credit to the easy uniqueness of the group. But now rather than being a modern punk oddity, Parquet Courts is learning to thrive in its aesthetic, courting even more acclaim of the bright future ahead.

The band will be performing free tonight at Philadelphia's Morgan's Pier with Woods, continuing the venue's free summer concert series. The show is set to begin at 9 p.m. Check the Morgan's Pier website for more details.

The Fire, June 25 - Hospital Ships (Preview)

After meandering his way through the likes of Shearwater and Minus Story, in which he contributed various pieces, Kansas-native Jordan Geiger crafted his bedroom pop outfit Hospital Ships.

The band, which will be performing tonight at The Fire in Philadelphia with The Meta and Sean Rosner, is coming off Destruction In Yr Soul, the first with a full band behind Geiger. With the added dimensions, the lifting pop-centric dimensions balloon to something more massive, encapsulating.

The output, although aiming for something much larger than the early versions of the band, still sits comfortably between humble origins and steady progression. Through the band's evolution, that bigger sound crawls past Geiger's predisposed limitations and allows him to move forward to a possibly grander setting.

That vision will look to flourish tomorrow when doors open at 8 p.m. Tickets for the 21-plus show are still available.

Destruction In Yr Soul is out now on Graveface Records.

First Unitarian Church, April 19 - Iceage (Preview)

Culminating an impossibly stellar lineup of garage punk up-and-comers Night Birds, White Lung, and METZ, is frequent buzzing Dutch four-piece Iceage tonight at Philadelphia's First Unitarian Church. The outstanding youth of the group is still well known, despite crossing over on the U.S. scene roughly two years ago. Still, the power and brevity of the band's most recent LP You're Nothing on a jump to Matador makes Iceage leading the other bands almost unquestionable.

The Copenhagen band, led by workaholic at-heart Elias Bender Rønnenfelt (who's still churning out stuff as part of Marching Church and Vår), feeds on torrid momentum on You're Nothing, taking the exhausted jubilant nature of New Brigade without relinquishing the - as Anthony Fantano says it best - "chaotic apathy." The sounded is refined - something fairly improbable for any version of punk - but patterns and melodies don't just seem thrown in from varying minds of the band, rather, sticking as a whole scheme.

Whether or not that tooling of the technique means anything for the band's live persona should hold high, given the years of touring and the vigorous attitude the band has towards moving forward. It has to, regardless, because a lineup featuring White Lung and METZ will have plenty craving for a righteous finale.

Tickets for the show are still available, with doors opening at 7 p.m. and beginning at 7:30.