Wolf Parade frontman takes detour through Plague Park

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.