Wolf Parade: Apologies To The Queen Mary : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

"I'll Believe in Anything," the best cut on Wolf Parade's excellently shambling debut, may be the indie-rock song of the year. Overflowing with desperate, Brit-inflected yelping, a heartstring-tugging chorus and a clamorous racket that could have come from a drunken bagpipe troupe, "Anything" shows off Wolf Parade's twin strengths: the mock-orchestral grandeur of their Montreal buddies the Arcade Fire and the weirdo pop sensibility of their producer, Modest Mouse's Isaac Brock. Apologies To The Queen Mary is often unfocused, but it's plenty lovable. Dan Boeckner makes oblique stabs at this graying world on cockeyed punk cuts like "It's a Curse"; co-frontman Spencer King hints at darker agonies on the keyboard-drenched slow-burner "Dinner Bells." And on the closing "This Heart's On Fire," Boeckner cranks up his Cobain yowl while pulling off a novel trick: saying exactly what he means.