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This article also appearing in the June 18 edition of The College Times.Boeckner’s Handsome Furs make “sparse and repetitive” anthemic
The latest installment of side projects off-shooting from the band Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs, released their debut full-length album on Sub Pop Records recently.
Plague Park hit shelves May 22. It sounds very similar to a Wolf Parade album, that is, if Wolf Parade was stripped and pieced back together consisting only of vocalist and guitarist Dan Boeckner, his fiancée, Alexei Perry, and a drum machine.
The concept behind the project, according to their website, is to be “Dark and minimal while noisy and earnest … as sparse and repetitive as possible with the help of little more than vocals, guitars and a drum machine.”
On first listen the album as a whole feels kind of lagging and bleak, but, given what the duo has set out to accomplish, they’ve achieved their goal with interesting results. Results that create a growing album that becomes more anthemic with each additional spin.
This growing power seems due largely in part to similarities to Apologies to the Queen Mary. Boeckner’s familiar, howling vocals on Plague Park feel reminiscent to “Modern World” and “Same Ghost Every Night.” It’s like he is using this new direction with Handsome Furs to improve and expound on the driving, haunting power that these two outstanding tracks provided to Wolf Parade’s LP.
Picking a couple stand-out tracks out from Plague Park is difficult given the “sparse and repetitive” nature of the album as a whole, but “Handsome Furs Hate This City” and “Dumb Animals” tend to stick out to most who venture into Plague Park.
This debut certainly mirrors the purpose of the project. The nine-track disc is bound by a very steady rhythm and tone. Each track bears some kind of originality while similarities envelope every stripped, machine-driven track.
Plague Park, though perhaps not super impressive on the first go-round, is a worthy effort from this duo, the newest addition to the pack of Wolf Parade sides.
I'm sure most everyone has seen this video by now, but it's such a good video for a good song.
I'm currently working out the details of some shows and finishing up an older show review and a CD review.
Originally ran as an artile in The College Times on October 28, 2006. It's old, and I cleaned it up, but the review is timeless in nature.New Cursive album takes even newer direction
“Welcome one and welcome all to our small town,” Tim Kasher (vocalist, guitarist) sings, welcoming all listeners to the small town and the bands fifth full-length album – Happy Hollow.
Released August 2006 on Saddle Creek Records, Happy Hollow marks a move in a new direction for the Omaha, Nebraska four-piece comprised of Kasher, Matt Maginn (bass), Clint Schnase (drums) and Ted Stevens (guitar, vocals).
Keeping course with the bands unquenchable thirst for re-invention, take The Ugly Organ for example, and with the departure of cellist Gretta Cohn, Cursive have added a section of horns, arranged by Nate Walcott, which nicely punctuate the starts, stops, and strains throughout this 14-song collection. Even with so much change going on, somehow the Cursive stays true to their overall sound and Kasher to his disjointed song-writing style with Happy Hollow.
Continuing with a theme of change on the album, Kasher not only takes on a modified sound, he also moves past drowning his troubles with women at the bar and has a much larger fish to fry, namely God. It becomes somewhat what Jonah Bayer , in a review for Alternative Press, referred to as “The Da Vinci Code for indie rockers.” It isn’t a direct stab at Deity, but it does reveal a genuine skepticism about Catholicism with track like "Big Bang," "Bad Science" and "Bad Sects" which take definite aim at the religion.
However, he never mentions the church, nor does he denounce organized religion directly, he does it by constructing stories based on characters from the sleep town of Happy Hollow such as Father Cole, the pregnant teenager named Jeannine, other characters who remain nameless, and Dorothy, while not directly related to the subject of God or religion, strikes a familiar chord as a girl who keeps living in dreams of emerald cities and chasing tornadoes on the tracks "Dorothy at Forty" and "Dorothy Dreams Of Tornadoes."
One track that puts a bit of a kink in the fluidity of the record, even though it is somewhat of a roller coaster ride and full of thought provoking lyrics regardless, is the track "Into The Fold." Kasher recounts a philosophical discussion between a lamb and a shepherd, which will generally lose most listeners. Kasher perhaps gets a little to deep on this track, but it doesn’t really ruin the overall listen of the album.
Happy Hollow is a beautiful mix of storytelling, multi-genre sound, and ambiguity that create something of an eccentric package that is definitely worth a few good listens.
The latest installment of side projects off-shooting from the band Wolf Parade, Handsome Furs, released their debut full-length album on Sub Pop Records recently.
