Weekly Release Spotlight: Wolf Parade

Posted on 6/22/2008

Wolf Parade

At Mount Zoomer

[Sub Pop]

It's a tug of war. Forget ego and its everlasting place in rock and roll, it's a no-nonsense battle between aesthetics for the listener when a band is co-led by two equally talented songwriters/musicians with two distinctly different ways of handling dirty synth-infused indie rock. On paper, antithetical adjectives like "unified" and "divisive" burst out to constantly praise and/or pick apart Wolf Parade and its two stars, keyboardist/vocalist Spencer Krug and guitarist/vocalist Dan Boeckner, who each have exactly 4.5 songs that they wrote and sing lead on throughout their triumphant sophomore release At Mount Zoomer. When it all comes to putting on those headphones, though, some people will gravitate more to Boeckner's songs and some will latch themselves onto Krug's. It's simple the way the cookie crumbles.

Now, this does not mean one can't enjoy both nor that one cannot appreciate Zoomer as a whole. Rather, it means Wolf Parade are a band that very simply contains three levels of awesome: Boeckner, Krug, and what the two can do together. Their left-field knockout debut Apologies to the Queen Mary obviously didn't come with the dual singer baggage; it simply wowed audiences with a new brand of rousing and warped rock music. However, like Zoomer, upon closer examination, Boeckner is in charge of the "rousing" aspect (like he does in side project Handsome Furs) while Krug maintains control over the "warped" mindset (see his other work in Sunset Rubdown and Swan Lake). Boeckner and Krug have a warbling yelp and penchant for circus synths in common, which keeps the songs held together, but Boeckner's guitar pop anthems serve a markedly different purpose from Krug's piano-led forays into twisted mayhem.

On their latest collaboration, the two are also lyrically bound by a common theme of the decaying city. Almost too catchy to be medium-tempo, Boeckner bemoans a mysterious "Language City," remarking, "all this working, just to tear it down." While he's stuck participating in reverse construction, the more wolf-like Krug sits on the wooded outset of town on "Bang Your Drum," questioning, "do they beat that drum to get you back home or do they beat it to keep you away?" All this clever wordplay doesn't hit the ears, though, until fully absorbing the rollicking instrumental interplay, which both harks back to joyous Queen Mary reverberations ("The Grey Estates") and inches toward new adventurous sounds (the proggy keys cannot be denied on "California Dreamer"). The two come to a bubbling head in the epic closer "Kissing the Beehive," co-written and co-led by Boeckner and Krug, which offers plenty of time to fully digest both men's separate contributions to the group and cements Wolf Parade's status as one of the most enjoyable bands with more than one prominent lead singer in indie rock today.

Stream: Wolf Parade - Call It A Ritual

Download

Wolf Parade will be playing the First Avenue Mainroom on Wednesday, July 9th.

Written by Chris Polley, Radio K volunteer and host of Now Like Photographs.