“Last year, if I got worried about anything, I was like they are going to savage this record for no other reason than they really like the last one. I tried not to think about it that much.”

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By Brittney Barrett  |  Send to Friend

Wolf Parade had some big shoes to fill with their sophomore release, At Mount Zoomer...their own. Emerging in time with the internet hype machine in late 2005, the Canadian power-pop quintet went from zero to sixty in the click of a mouse. Where many bands may have collapsed under the weight of their own buzz, Wolf Parade marched on, without pause, to their own manic percussion. Rather than becoming victim to the pretension born from success, they continued churning out the same synth-powered pop that first made the blogosphere get up and dance. A conversation with Dan Boekner, the man responsible for the epic guitar tantrums, off-beat vocals and much of the song writing on “At Mount Zoomer” reveals the secret to a sophomore success in an industry where a first album is often the last.

“We just kind of decided to make the record that we wanted to make without taking into account anything besides just writing music together,” Boekner says in reference to the pressure to please. “I think consciously trying to appeal to an imaginary audience before the record’s out would have been like total career suicide.”  

Not to say the band didn’t feel the heat from internet predators out to bring in the new and push out the old. “Last year, if I got worried about anything, I was like they are going to savage this record for no other reason than they really like the last one. I tried not to think about it that much.”

Ignoring the odds worked in favor of the band, who first surfaced with the likes of Clap Your Hands and Say Yeah and a number of other well received musicians that crashed and burned with their second albums. “I think it’s an inevitably with certain facets of the internet; they’re kind of obsessed with what the new thing is. That’s kind of what they established themselves as, they’re like pitchy.”

Despite the pattern established by their peers; however, the record has for the most part been embraced by critics or at the very least was not “totally shit on,” as Boekner put it. “They have a real tendency of prepping stuff up and then just tearing it to shreds, you know?”

Wolf Parade’s capacity to avoid such a fate could be attributed to their mission of improvement rather than overhaul. Where many lead guitarists would rattle off an endless list of adjectives to describe the evolution of their sound, Boekner describes the new record simply as “more collaborative,” elaborating only so much as to pay homage to the advantages afforded to them by their initial success. “We recorded in a totally professional studio with a lot better gear than the last one. I think it was a conscious decision on our part to make a cleaner record.”

Cleaner did not mean more commercial for Wolf Parade who sought, with the support of their label Sub Pop, to avoid the temptation to create a radio-ready hit, opting instead for 11 minute Tour De Forces like “Kissing the Beehive” and haunting pop ditties like Boekner’s personal favorite, “Animal in Your Care.”

Such decisions are liable to be the result of a fear of over-exposure. Boekner sights the rise and fall of Deer Hunter as an example. “ You look at what they did with Deer Hunter, where they were like ‘this band is the greatest thing since sliced bread,’ and then they kinda turned that guy, Bradford Cox’s life into like a fucking ridiculous tabloid. And it’s not like I didn’t know that Pitchfork was like that already. “

In spite of Wolf Parade’s highly personal goals, At Mount Zoomer is destined for internet eminence. Complicated, powerful and deliriously fun, the album serves as auditory confirmation of an allure less founded in the collective hunger for novelty than in legitimate talent and artistic integrity.

 

Guest Illustrator Keith Greiman has a thing with wolves. (altpick.com/keithgreiman)