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Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Wolf Parade - Expo 86


Wolf Parade are often referred to as a supergroup. Whether such a superlative should be used to describe a band made up of members of Handsome Furs, Sunset Rubdown and Hot Hot Heat is a debate for another time, but, regardless, the Canadian four-piece has always brought something interesting to the table. In keyboardist Spencer Krug and guitarist Dan Boeckner the band has two distinct characters at its helm who, on their first two albums, stamped their own idiosyncrasies on their compositions.

Opener Cloud Shadow On The Mountain suggests the same will happen on this third long-player, as it is certainly Krug’s baby. His tense spoken-word vocal, “I was asleep in a hammock/I was dreaming that I was a web/I was a dreamcatcher hanging on the window of a mini-van parked along the water's edge/I'd say that I was all alone,” is warbled like a paranoid David Byrne before all kinds of hell breaks loose on drums and guitar. It’s a magnificent, tightly-coiled start. Sadly though, the album struggles to sustain this excitement. Up next, the standard, Springsteen-inspired Palm Road - featuring Boeckner on vocals - is a good example of the rockier nature of Expo 86. While its fuzzy jams show off some of the dichotomy of the band’s previous two outings, the usually clear lines between the two songwriters are more blurred than usual.

Despite several good moments, Expo 86 is overly dense and loose on too many occasions. It gives off the feeling that the two talented songwriters at the forefront of Wolf Parade are saving their best ideas for their other projects, which is a shame because Expo 86 doesn’t miss the mark by much, but it ultimately lacks the spark needed to turn a solid album into a great one.

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