Categories : Music Reviews, Rock + Pop.
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Rating: 3 / 5 Reviewer: Michelle Kennedy |
Spencer Krug deserves some mega kudos for pulling a reasonably good pop record out of the mire of a terrible first impression: Expo 86’s opening offering, ‘Cloud Shadow On The Mountain,’ is a bizarre song. It sounds like suddenly Wolf Parade has become a hobby garage band playing bad covers of obscure Oasis songs on Sunday afternoons while their wives sit beside them cheering them on and gossiping about their sons’ sexy hockey coach. Fortunately for those listeners brave enough to slog through those surprising 4 minutes a pleasant afternoon of pop music meets them on the other side. The true standouts on this album fall in the middle (‘Ghost Pressure’ and ‘Pobody’s Nerfect’) and build from more contemporary indie fare on the first half of the album into a lovely pop crescendo. ‘Yulia’ is hands-down the best song on Expo 86 and there is little chance that you won’t be bobbing your head along to this lovely little track as you cycle through the hipster neighbourhoods of your town. But Expo 86 is not a great record. Wolf Parade has stopped asking listeners to ask what’s next; instead they are creating competent and interesting but not surprising indie pop music with not a synth or yelped lead vocal out of place. Apologies to the Queen Mary surprised and Krug and pals have been coasting since then.
Expo 86 is aptly named album. In the current zeitgeist of Canadian indie pop there is no question of Wolf Parade’s significance just as there is no question of the significance of Expo 86 in the minds of many Canadian artists in their mid-to-late 30s. The mystique of seeing Canada projected to the world as a child is not a memory soon forgotten. While there is no doubt that Krug is aware of the significance of Expo 86 the question remains: is the titling of this album an ironic comment on Canadian national identity or a deliberate and self promoting notion that somehow Wolf Parade will be as significant as Expo 86? What remains is this: Spencer Krug has his hand so deeply inside Canadian indie rock that whether or not this album is good becomes completely irrelevant. His street cred is off the charts: membership in a number of cool (and arguably better) bands, a relationship with indie giant Sub Pop and the very fact that he makes music that is so undeniably “Montreal” helps people care more about the music than they might if they just happened to stumble upon ‘Palm Road’ whilst browsing their boyfriends iTunes playlist. When Wolf Parade is said and done it will remain to be seen where Expo 86 will fall on the spectrum of their output. To date it is neither the best nor the worst and hopefully one step removed from something amazing on the horizon.
