Customer Reviews

At Mount Zoomer [Vinyl]

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I first heard At Mount Zoomer, I was a little disappointed. It didn't seem to have the instant POP of Wolf Parade's first album, Apologies To The Queen Mary. That album broke onto the scene with gritty, electronically tinged rock songs that contained enough pop sensibility to appease any ear. At Mount Zoomer sounded like they were trying to repeat that effort, but with less success.

And then I listened again. And again. And again.

It became apparent that the album is more complicated than that.

Language City is gem. It opens with an excellent guitar riff and then enters the drums, the piano, and once a furious rhythm is established familiar synth buzzes through the air. They then break it down into a transcendent, hope-filled finish echoing, "We are not at home."

Exactly, the band is somewhere else now. Wolf Parade seems more concerned with the timing and progression of their songs.

"California Dreamer" starts strange with hopping bass and synth like a hypnopompic hallucination. The song then jumps into a psychedelic jam and finally ends leaving little of that initial strangeness resolved.

This oddity is followed by the cheery "The Grey Estates" wiping away the cobwebs of "California Dreamer."

"Fine Young Cannibals" follows with brooding guitar parts. Again the flow established in the previous song is interrupted. The song evolves into another dreamlike jam and the result is superb.

I could go on but I think I made my point. There is a surreal character in the album created by the shifting moods. Wolf Parade seamlessly moves between otherworldly jams and hallucitory peaks and valleys. The result epic in scope, though not as immediately accessible as Apologies. However, Zoomer is a much more interesting listen. Fans of Apologies who give the album a close and scrutinizing listen will discover a new world here. And it's a fun and mesmerizing place.

I can't finish this review without noting that album ends fantastically with Kissing the Beehive Pt 1 and 2.

I ordered this CD and put it in my daughter's stocking for Christmas this year. She's very happy with the CD.

I have loved wolf parade for since the first note i heard, this album has only increased my love for them. If you can see them live, amazing.

i found this by accident in a record store a couple weeks ago, excited to see a new Wolf Parade album. i am extremely pleased and it's most of what i've been listening to since i found it :)

At Mount Zoomer feels very solid as an album instead of having a few 'catchy' songs on it. highly recommended, go buy it!

At Mount Zoomer (2008, Sub Pop) Wolf Parade's second studio album. ****

Certainly Arcade Fire's church studio didn't work the wonders for Wolf Parade's sophomore album as it did for them, but that doesn't mean the duo don't know how to make good music. At Mount Zoomer is strangely dense; in a way, it avoids the overly-layered approach that come to plague indie rock and alternative rock bands that want to veer further away than what is considered the all-too-obvious quirkiness. At the same time, they don't come off as too bouncy or weird. It's a delicate balance of a wide array of influences, but in the end, Wolf Parade are easily a staple band of the indie rock community. "Language City" has a whirlwind of synths, marking its independence from a run-of-the-mill studio single. "California Dreamer" sounds like a lost Doors take, featuring heavy electric keyboards and brooding vocals, mixing in some very progressive sounds. One waits to hear Morrison chime in on the chorus, "I thought I might have heard you on the radio/But the radio waves were like snow." The only snag may be "The Grey Estates," which sounds all too much like an Arcade Fire song. And while that in itself may not be bad, the idea that Arcade Fire could have done it so much better makes you wince. "Fine Young Cannibals" features a very orderly procession, with sparse bass, keyboards, and guitar. It sometimes meanders, but never does it stray too far, and Boeckner and Krug's vocals always bring it back. The album finishes with "An Animal In Your Care," a Simon and Garfunkel would-be complete with "La-la-lies" just like "The Boxer." At the end of the day, artists will be forced to look at At Mount Zoomer as a new twist with the same ingredients, because while there is no message or theme like there was on Neon Bible, the music itself is far more complex than it appears, revealing more intricacies with each listen. A very decent sophomore effort. (Soldier's Grin, Fine Young Cannibals)

If Sunset Rubdown and Handsome Furs had a child, it would be At Mt. Zoomer. This is Krug and Boeckner's fully realized musical vision and it's literally blowing my mind.

Wolf Parade's combustible, frantic first album, Apologies To The Queen Mary, was one of the most creative and undeniably fresh debuts by an indie rock band in 2005 or since, and their members' haven't been lacking for any new ideas; vocalists/guitarists Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug have been involved in countless side projects, with Wolf Parade only the most well known. It would be quite a task to match up to the unique indie-rock of Apologies, and Wolf Parade doesn't try. Instead, they set back the metronomes, tone down the yelps, and take to At Mount Zoomer like a wizened painter slowly fine-tuning his latest piece to work out every last kink.

The results are, predictably, mixed. Much of Apologies charm came from its "screw-the-torpedoes-full-speed-ahead" mentality and the way Wolf Parade's grab-bag of rock styles and influences combined to create a whole that always seemed like it was about to fall apart but somehow managed to stay strong to the end. At Mount Zoomer is slower and more calculated; Wolf Parade knows what they want to do, and, for the most part, they do it. "Soldier's Grin" is vintage Wolf Parade, rolling drums, hypnotic keyboards, and Boeckner and Krug's peculiar vocals framing their characteristically dense lyrics.

"Call It A Ritual" is even more tightly focused, built around a foreboding piano line and squalling guitar, but the song never really develops beyond its origins. The following "Language City" is the best song on the record, a tune about the pointlessness of talking just to talk that has a better beat than anything else on the album and a cathartic synth-based ending.

The songs tend to switch between shorter 3-minute pop experiments and 6-minute-plus musical expeditions. At Mount Zoomer thus has only nine tracks, but due to the often-bloated track lengths, Boeckner and Krug's idea well tends to run dry along the second half of the album. "Fine Young Cannibals" loses steam early and turns into an instrumental that is interesting only the first time one listens to it. Closer "Kissing The Beehive" is about as prog as Wolf Parade could ever reasonably be expected to go, and consists of about five minutes worth of excellent melodies and ideas and another six minutes of so-so noodling and half-brained ventures. It's a conscious attempt to sound epic, one that they can do just as easily with half the space.

Overall, the tracks on At Mount Zoomer tend to stand up individually on close inspection, but when the album is taken as a whole, its parts seem a little less distinctive. No song here grabs you immediately like Apologies opener "You Are A Runner And I Am My Father's Son" or the heartfelt honesty and catchiness of "Dear Sons And Daughters of Holy Ghosts." Apologies succeeded in never staying in the same place for too long; At Mount Zoomer succeeds in once again sounding unique, and Wolf Parade have once again defined a sound that is unequivocally theirs, but as a whole the songs tend to sound too similar too one another over the long haul to match up to Apologies' breakneck pace and innovative rapid-fire changes.

I have never heard apologies to the queen; however, i still immensely enjoyed this album, what is my introduction to wolf parade Highlights include: language city, soldier's grin, california dreamer, and the rest.

Sophomore slump? What's that?

Don't be fooled by the three year gap between Wolf Parade's first and second album, these guys are prolific. If I'm not mistaken (and I think I am), Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner play in ten or twelve other side bands each. This means that during those three years they have collectively written eight-hundred songs, so you'll excuse them if Wolf Parade's second album has only nine perfect songs instead of twelve.

Anyone who's followed Ryan Adam's career knows that being prolific is often more of a hindrance to an artist than a boon. Unlike Senior Adams, the principle members of Wolf Parade do not have to bear their band on a single pair of shoulders, and despite the high quality of the aforementioned side projects, there must be some kind of chemistry between the principle songwriters Krug and Boeckner that pushes both of them to the peak of their songwriting skills. Perhaps that's even why the album is called At Mount Zoomer (actually it's because that's where it was recorded).

At Mount Zoomer is one of the few sophomore albums in recent years that feels like a confident couple of steps in the right direction. After listening to both albums back to back I'm convinced that the band approaches their second album with a completely different mindset than their first. The guitar is no longer required to merely produce a series of chords, and instead the vocals, keyboards and guitar all form a cyclone of melodies.

Likewise, the songs are much looser in structure. Many of the songs make their way through so many sonic landscapes that by the time you reach the end of it is easy to forget about where you began. In particular "Language" city begins as a rhythm driven march but as it continues, and the song rises with the mantra "We are not at home," it feels more like a zephyr surrounded by swirling synths.

The inclusion of so many slower songs like "Call it a Ritual," "Bang Your Drum," and "Fine Young Cannibals" (a sizable sum on a nine song album) only draws attention to the band's chest-out confidence. The conversations between the rhythm and melody segments are so deep that none of these songs feel like filler, and so confident is the band that even at excess of six minutes "Fine Young Cannibals" holds one's interest for every intervening second.

I know what you're thinking. Now, I'm hardly an expert regarding bands from the eighties comprised of ex-members from The English Beat, but if The Fine Young Cannibals ever, with a nod to INXS, host a reality show contest in order to replace a band member, then I think the members of Wolf Parade would give that guy with the white afro from Hot Hot Heat a run for his money. In conclusion, yes, "Fine Young Cannibals" does sound like it has some eighties influence, with synthesized horns and all, but not like an actual Fine Young Cannibals song.

The real centerpiece of the album is the six-minute epic "California Dreamer." The propulsive drum and bass provides tension for every moment while the rest of the band ratchets up their performance. By the time the chorus of "I thought I heard you on the radio but the radio waves were like snow" kicks in, it's damn near impossible not to join in.

When I finally get to the point where At Mount Zoomer is no longer the choice du jour on my ipod, and it gets quietly shuffled back into the mix, it's comforting to know that there will be plenty of side projects to tide me over. Of course, even with all those side projects running around, I would prefer not to wait three more years for another Wolf Parade album. Remember Boeckner and Krug, power in numbers and all that.

Wolf Parade's second effort, At Mount Zoomer, is a good record. This is how I feel about it--at the moment. Their first, Apologies to the Queen Mary, was one of my favorite records of the past few years. I have listened to it literally thousands of times, and usually daydream that it is actually my record, that I made. Sadly, it isn't. :-(

The new album is growing on me slowly. It lacks the bombast of the previous, but it's interesting nonetheless. "Soldier's Grin" and "Language City" are my immediate favorites, and are reminiscent of Apologies, with the more driving melodies and grand schemes, but from there the songs really form a different record. I'm having trouble putting my finger on whom they "sound like": lots of synthy keyboards and fragmented songs. To no avail, I'll just say that it's a good record with `80s nostalgia' that makes for a nice listen. It's sometimes poppy, other times a little droning. If you enjoyed the first record, you'll probably like this one--after a bit.

--David Levin

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