Wolf Parade: At Mount Zoomer : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Championed by Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock, this Montreal band is the product of two fiercely creative minds that come together in a beautiful mess. Singer-keyboardist Spencer Krug delivers exuberantly spasmodic rants (see his side project Sunset Rubdown), singer-guitarist Dan Boeckner tends toward more straightforward brooding yelps (see his side project Handsome Furs), and their colleagues somehow hold it all together. The result is synth-powered rock that's both primal and chaotic. "Soldier's Grin" is a twitchy New Wave speed waltz with a roots-rock breakdown; "Call It a Ritual" is a steam-punk ballad with heavy echo and guitar tantrums; the keyboard-driven "Fine Young Cannibals" sounds more like Roxy Music than its namesake. But the parade is most thrilling when it becomes a stampede. Check out "Kissing the Beehive," 11 minutes of fist-pumping prog-rock march rhythms with heraldic synthesizer chords and a disco high-hat undertow. It's largely indecipherable, totally animalistic and frequently breathtaking.