Leave it to Parquet Courts , the ever-inventive, erudite indie rock outfit, to make a pandemic record before the pandemic. The Brooklyn band’s seventh album, Sympathy for Life , out October 22nd, is a meditation on technology, alienation, and impersonal relationships; masks are a recurring theme, albeit in a more classic psychological sense, but that doesn’t make it feel any less on the nose. The beacon of hope at the end of this morass is salvation through community, with Parquet Courts finding a new road map on the dance floor. “These are all feelings that became exacerbated during the pandemic,” says Austin Brown, one of the band’s two frontmen. “These were things that were always there, just maybe not as blatant or obvious. So I think that’s really interesting, that [this album] tells a kind of timeless story that we’re only now realizing since we’ve had so many of the luxuries of our personal and social lives taken away .” Sympathy for Life, which follows 2018’s …