"Apologies To The Queen Mary” Wolf Parade Sub Pop
Records
Rock bands have a history of getting ahead of themselves.
“We built another world,” sings Spencer Krug in Wolf
Parade’s debut release, and for once, the boast may be
accurate. “Apologies To The Queen Mary” sounds like
little else on the shelves these days. Instead, Krug’s spooky
vocals and the band’s clanging instruments recall the gritty,
forgotten early work of Modest Mouse. Not coincidentally, Modest
Mouse’s Isaac Brock produced this album, which is a gleefully
more raw affair than his own band’s recent recordings.
Together a mere two years, Wolf Parade is already an intensely
cohesive band. In many of the songs, the keyboards, bass and
guitars all fall in line to create driving, thumping rock animals.
Riding the tiger of the band’s sound is Krug, an able
vocalist who matches the music’s energy with exuberant,
hyperbolic cliches: “Waiting for something that would never
arrive,” he sings in “Shine A Light,” one-upping
himself two tracks later when he shouts, “I’ll believe
in anything.” The lyrics work because of the album’s
propulsive enthusiasm; the songs are anthemic enough to support
even the most overblown line. “Apologies To The Queen
Mary” is full of tension. The lyrics are never quite as dark
as Brock’s, which is a necessary counterbalance to the
album’s eerie tone. Songs like “You Are a Runner and I
Am My Father’s Son” find distorted keyboards straining
against tight rhythms and a robotic beat, only to give way to the
loose, moaning “Modern World.” The album’s best
track is, not surprisingly, the catchiest. “Dear Sons and
Daughters of Hungry Ghosts” is a stumbling push to the
chorus, where the band unveils a solitary guitar hook before
rushing back in. Though Wolf Parade sticks to grittier material,
the group, like Bloc Party and Franz Ferdinand, finds inspiration
in the merging of post-punk’s searing intensity with pop
music’s wide appeal. With this release, Wolf Parade has
surmounted the expectations weighing on it since a pair of EPs and
an opening spot for Arcade Fire, not to mention signing to the
prolific Sub Pop Records. “Apologies To The Queen Mary”
is both exciting and consistent. This rock band, at least, has
every right to howl.
““ David Greenwald