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Wolf Parade – At Mount Zoomer
Reviewed By Nolan Grey
Wolf Parade’s second full-length studio album, At Mount Zoomer, does not disappoint. Songs are expertly woven together, featuring the talents of Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug at the helm.
Soldier’s Grin: 9.4
The lead track starts the album off well, with a dueling melody and generally positive vibe. Like many Wolf Parade songs, the work is intricate enough to not only justify, but also deserve repeated listens to fully appreciate.
Call it a ritual: 8.5
With piano, echo effected voice, and intermittent raging guitar, Call it a ritual’s sound is excellent in a markedly different way than Soldier’s Grin. All this should be of little surprise with Krug at the helm, however Wolf Parade’s ability to produce such a variegated album is a strength that must be noted.
Language City: 9.2
Boeckner’s second track is another stand out. The guitar rocks, the drum pushes, and Boeckner’s vocals pepper the track with enthusiasm and emotion.
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Mono – You Are There
Reviewed by Mike
Instrumental rock bands bands are often self indulgent and ham-handed. Mono is not one of them. You Are There was recorded and produced in Chicago by Steve Albini in 2005. It’s release in 2006 was underreported, thus the need for a followup two years later. Mono was founded by guitarist Takaakira “Taka” Goto. What Mono does so well is provide music that is more the pace of the natural world, It’s steps are not robotic or panicked, but rather sure-footed and controlled.
1. The Flames Beyond The Cold Mountain: 10.0
Few rock instrumental acts are able to balance powerful, sweeping strides with delicate nuances. On Cold Mountain, Mono takes us on a breathakingly beautiful journey, played out over thirteen minutes. Usually only the most talented of rock acts can pull off thirteen minute long songs without losing the listener’s interest(see Pink Floyd). Many acts and their identity-seeking fans will claim long songs to be “indulgent”, but that’s only because the bands that make those tracks don’t have the talent to pull it off. In this case, Mono is up to the task. Slow, watery guitar and tension filled backgrounds rise and swell to reveal a gigantic cleansed landscape, like driving hours through a rainstorm only to have the sun pierce through the clouds and your windshield finally translucent. This isn’t all about the calm, however. It’s also about the storm itself.
A sense of place and time pervades the song. I’m reminded of the long drive out to the Northern Rockies of the U.S. via Chicago. The drive through Wisconsin, Minnesota and the eastern half of North Dakota are pleasant enough, but it feels fairly hemmed in. Things start to change about two thirds of the way through North Dakota. The reality as I knew it – the humidity, bright green decidous trees and farmland gives way to a more arid and brown landscape. Tumbelweeds roll into the road. The horizon starts to go on forever, with bigger hills. A few stunted dry pine trees dot the landscape and raptors suddenly appear everywhere, like some altruistic bellhop in the worlds largest and oldest hotel lobby.
This song is that sense of change, of the “unfolding”, of entering an alien atmosphere that in the end, was more comfortable than the one you called home. I can only imagine it’s similar to what Lewis and Clark felt as they plied westward into the unknown.
2. A Heart Has Asked For The Pleasure: 9.4
This feels like a post-rock love song. There are no vocals of course, but the melody and strings convey a human touch. It’s short for Mono standards, rolling along at under four minutes. But it’s no less stunning for it. Simple chimes accentuate the rise and fall of the strings, creating an ethereal musical partnership.
3. Yearning: 9.6
Sonically stunning for all of it’s fifteen minutes. We’re introduced by hushed guitar picking, creating a subdued atmosphere before the song builds into a massive wall of tension. In a way, it’s similar to The Flames Beyond The Cold Mountain, but it’s able to create it’s own identity within the album by undertaking a more defiant and rebelious tone.
Six minutes in, we’re treated to soaring, triumphant guitar work anchored down by a slow pulse of invigorating drums.
4. Are You There?: 9.8
Is it possible for a song to ask a question? It seems Mono is attempting to do just that, swirling on the edge of your consciousness, a playful interrogation on the senses. In the end, the tease reveals itself to be majestic and true.
5. The Remains Of The Day: 9.4
Sunset and dusk. The title eludes to that, and musically there’s an almost resigned quality, of one realizing the day is almost over. Is this the end of the first day in the new landscape, as drawn out in The Flames Beyond The Cold Mountain? Perhaps. Just like the sunset, it’s over before you know it. The best light of the day here, and then gone.
6. Moonlight: 10.0
Night has set in, and moonlight greets us. Echoing shimmers of guitar reflect moonbeams, and a bewitching electric piano strides inbetween. Interrupting this earthy interlude is an upswell of strings, like some great big owl stretching it’s wings in the night, skimming the tops of the trees. A lonely guitar breaks that pattern, taking us over the far off ridge, up and up the slopes, out of the pine and into the apline tundra of the mountainside where waterfalls crash onto barren rock and one of the last wolverines in North Amercia stakes out it’s claim – alone, but the last vanguard of the mountain, of place and of time.
The air is thin, but that’s only because it’s closer to the stars.
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