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Wolf Parade
Style and substance are constantly being removed from each other asmore and more releases like this one find their way to CD players. Asense of urgency can do a lot for a record or song, especially when thelyrics suggest something urgent; it's hard to believe Wolf Parade aredoing anything other than acting, however.Sub Pop
It's the same problem I havewith another Montreal band of some acclaim. The vocals, the thumpinghalf-disco driven rock, the exaggerated interludes, and the attempts atfeeling epic all lend to some image of a kid standing on a soap box,but not really knowing what to say. It's the perfect music for ageneration spoiled by the easy, and oversimplified, knowledge providedby being part of the Internet community. No matter how important orinformed a song might make itself sound, there's no getting past thecomplete lack of musical innovation and no hiding from the operaticsingers that try to propel themselves into my mind instead of lettingme settle comfortably into their deliveries. It's the assholes aretrying to stab my ears, stick a funnel down them, and scream theirhorridly pedestrian and adolescent poetry into my brain. The musicitself is more of what is becoming the same: 1980s throwback is all therage and every record is incomplete without dance-intended beats,catchy melodies made by guitars and keyboards,and absolutely redundant verse/chorus/verse structures. And indeed, asrock moves backwards more than forwards, the guitar solo is still beingreplaced by non-existent or uninteresting breakdowns and sudden stops.The punk ethos is beautiful, but it's time to re-apply it to somethingother than guitars and drums. If comfort is the only concern somemusicians have for their fans (and themselves) then so be it, boringmusic has and probably always will exist as long as there's a dollar tobe made and an audience willing to snatch up every last album that hasan adjective like "inventive" or "innovative" attached to it.
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