Wolf Parade

At Mount Zoomer

Rating: 3 and a half out of 5 stars

Sub Pop

I have two confessions to make. The first is that I truly love Spencer Krug. Now, this isn't something a music critic should admit, but the man has more talent than 57 "OMG! You need to check out this band!" bands put together. Anything he's touched in the last four or five years has been branded solid gold because his scratchy hysterics and keyboard prowess. My second confession is that I really don't understand him. He talks about leopards and weddings and quips an awful lot about lovers of all kinds, but really, what the hell is all that? Doesn't matter, because the man pulls it all together. Somehow.

But Wolf Parade really settles him down, which is good because sometimes Krug makes his albums a bit too complicated. He can take a breath with partner Dan Boeckner, and it showed on Apologies to the Queen Mary (2005), Krug's most solid, non-chaotic work. Isaac Brock's production made him seem much more elusive than he really was, but in comparison to Krug's other projects, Sunset Rubdown's Shut Up I Am Dreaming (2006) and Random Spirit Lover (2007), he was tame and coherent, in a Wolf Parade sort of way.

What this all means is that I'm not sure you can call At Mount Zoomer a follow-up record. It's only been three years since Wolf Parade released its blogosphere-busting gem Apologies, but so many other albums by its collective members - Boeckner with the Handsome Furs and Islands, Krug with Sunset Rubdown and Swan Lake - have been released, that it feels like there must have been another Wolf Parade album that snuck in somewhere. But alas, here we are with just the band's second album, one that is surprisingly more direct, more sing-songy and slightly less lovable than its first.

At Mount Zoomer is in many ways a battle between Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner for song supremacy. On Apologies to the Queen Mary, it was sometimes hard to distinguish between exactly who was taking the reins, but here, it's stamped much more clearly. Most songs alternate between Krug and Boeckner leading the way, and as polarizing and muffled as it may sound, the two pull it off rather well. What could have been a split between two songsmiths interrupting each other's styles actually highlights each man's lyrical and vocal talents: Boeckner going warm and direct; Krug going abstract and still using those looping chants of "oh!"

A lot was made of Modest Mouse frontman Isaac Brock's production on Apologies to the Queen Mary, but for the most part, it seemed overblown. Too many comparisons were made to Modest Mouse without much of a real connection between the two groups. But with At Mount Zoomer, it's a bit clearer how much of a grating, teeth-bearing influence Brock really had on the album. A song like "Fine Young Cannibals" hops along nicely, but without the rough edges, sort of disappears among the pack. "The Grey Estates" takes the same sort of hit, with the surprisingly joyous and fluffy notes dancing intricately even against Boeckner's gravely chants. But really, the album is smoother and straighter than expected.

Surprisingly, Krug, the emerging leader of the new indie world, might even have found himself upstaged by Boeckner. Something like "An Animal in Your Care" is clearly a Krug track, the droning guitar strums sliding up against Krug's stretched inflections, creating one of his dark, somber atmospheres for which is becoming so well known. "Call it a Ritual" falls along the same lines, with a sense of caustic urgency and dark, bouncy keyboard hits trod along forcefully. It's as if Krug is looking to place a more fully-formed, single album sound to the mixture of tracks. While this works with Sunset Rubdown, the interjection of Boeckner makes the transitions a bit rougher and noticeably less fluid than something like Random Spirit Lover.

But this is Wolf Parade, so it's not a bad thing. Boeckner fills the gaps incredibly well and most of his tracks are spot on. "Language City" sounds like the Wolf Parade we'd expect, a snappy and buzzing track that utilizes Krug's keyboard skills and churns out something that dissolves into a cuddly, puffy climax. Boeckner's chants of "What you know, can only mean one thing," from "A Soldier's Grin" match perfectly again with Krug's talents, and the breakdown near the middle of the song puts Boeckner on a pedestal and lets his wavering, crackly voice compete against a roaring, tumbling guitar/drum crescendo, Boeckner actually being the one who steals the power from the section.