The band has two primary songwriters (Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner) who are both strong, distinctive vocalists who write these great weird and catchy songs built around interlocking and overlapping guitar and synthesizer parts. Usually when a band has more than one chief songwriter, I’m usually instinctively pulled towards one guy over the other, but with Wolf Parade it’s a real toss-up. Krug’s voice has more of a wavering 70’s art rock quality while Boeckner is the more familiar “too much booze and cigs” type of anthemic belter. The record is very well sequenced and the differences between the two men’s songs help make it a varied and rewarding piece of work that holds up well under repeat listens.

So, carrying that level of enthusiasm like a lead weight into the Montreal band’s first headlining spot at Manhattan’s venerable Bowery Ballroom, I am probably partly to blame for my mild disappointment coming out of the show.

On the album, Modest Mouse’s Isaac Brock really did a hell of a job on the production. As tightly layered with melody and instrument as the tracks are, each component really stands out and interacts with the others in service of the songs. Live, playing with a small venue sound system, maybe this kind of density just isn’t possible. The starting numbers of the set, “It’s a Curse” and “We Built Another World” seemed rushed, with the synth and guitar assault coming off as sort of sloppy and incoherent, rather than complex.

To be fair, fans of the band who discovered them through their self titled 2004 EP might be better served as the live performances had more of the unhinged feeling of their EP versions. That theory was sort of quashed for me though with a so-so version of “Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts” missing the charming la la la lead in that distinguishes the EP version from its album counterpart.

Boeckner then gave the crowd a bit of damning banter, claiming, “The blogs say I shouldn’t tell you how drunk I am.” Well, this blog agrees, but I’ll go one further and suggest that maybe you shouldn’t actually GET that wasted before what would seem like a fairly important show. Maybe I’ve suddenly become an old man, but it’s a Monday Night and these guys played for an hour/hour and a half. Couldn’t they get drunk later? I mean, by all means have a couple drinks to loosen the NYC nerves, but when you’re lead guitarist is blatantly pounding Amstel Lights in the two minutes he has before he has to rock a guitar solo, it just seems kind of rude and excessive. (Speaking of rude and excessive, there was a funny moment when Boeckner was briefly forced to comment on a piece of heckling so filthy that I suspect it was nurtured quietly for a couple years with Canadian government grant money. I wasn’t directly in earshot but I’m fairly sure it was, “Shit in my pussy!” It was properly met with “Ewww, that is really disgusting.” – Silent beat. – “Thanks for coming out.”)

All of this is nit-picking I guess, but I was soooo ready to have my socks knocked off out of the starting gate that the presence of my socks mid way into the set was annoying. The band settled down as the show went on and put together their best sequence of the night with “Shine a Light/ You are a Runner and I am My Father’s Son/ Fancy Claps.” The first two songs are perhaps the strongest of the band’s whole catalog, and their relatively minimal structure came across much better than some of the trickier songs did. I mean when the songwriting is this strong, you’d have to be “A Tragic Day for Our University” drunk to screw them up. Krug repeated the last verse of “You are a Runner…” with only keyboard accompaniment as the band then launched into the beginning of “Fancy Claps” behind him. That was very cool. “Fancy Claps” itself was great, as it is more loosely arranged in general than some of the songs that I wasn’t totally into and the lack of precision wasn’t as missed.

Recently joined, and ex-Hot Hot Heat member, Dante DeCaro (nice trade up by the way, DD) took a break from bashing wind chimes and what looked suspiciously like a cheese grater to join in on vocals on the latter two songs and the power of two or three voices combining in specific bursts really took them over the top in terms of quality.

Another risky move for the band was the inclusion of 2-3 new, unrecorded songs in the place of some familiar material. Audience calls for “Grounds for Divorce” were met with the earnest explanation from Krug that the band was sick of it, and were just not going to pay it. Stellar album cuts “The Same Ghost Every Night” and “Modern World” were given similar snubbing. Personally, I was cool with this. I mean “Grounds for Divorce” is a great song, but judging by my response to some of the other songs in the set maybe this wasn’t the right night for me to see them play it.

The new songs were really good, to boot. The most memorable was a long, mid-tempo Spencer Krug track that has since been posted on the Internet as “Bones Song.” It’s built on a keyboard loop accentuated by noodle-y guitar and sleigh bells, and features the depressive chorus;

“Don’t throw the bones away/ We’ll find a place to pray” I can see ‘em/ You can see ‘em/ No one saves the day.

It builds to a yelling climax of “Oh come on!”s, with Dan joining in on vocals. Definitely an encouraging sign of things to come, and well worth tracking down.

They ended the show with a really nice rendition of ballad “Dinner Bells” and it was a good choice. I had mostly forgotten my early qualms by then, and on balance just seeing the band perform songs I was so obsessed with made it worthwhile. I just hope that next time they run through town they have a little more distance from the euphoric press reviews, and earn their stripes as a compelling live act as opposed to a nervously wasted “Next Big Thing” candidate whose great album landed them a bit over their heads too soon.

- Posted on behalf of Jeff Klingman.

//Wolf Parade site
//Buy Apologies to the Queen Mary

Tags: Wolf Parade