Sunset Rubdown, Snake’s Got A Leg

I was intrigued by Snake’s Got A Leg when I saw “includes members of Wolf Parade” in the tagline for this album. Sunset Rubdown is essentially Spencer Krug, the lead singer and keyboardist from said band, one of a number of recent Canuck bands emerging on the hype scene, and nowadays, if you’re Canadian and you’re in a popular indie band, you’ve gotta have a side band. I think it’s written somewhere in the Canadian constitution. Is there actually a Canadian constitution? Anyway, I digress. The Wolf Parade sound is a sort of jangly guitar rock party, backed up by whizzing keyboards. It’s also important to note that they recorded one of the best albums of 2005 in Apologies to the Queen Mary.

So, I was a little bummed to discover that this album is more of an “experimental” project. That’s code for “crap.” Basically, it’s a bunch of songs filled with electronic farts. The chorus of half the songs sounds like “BLARP — BONK — BONK — QUEEEEEEF.” The lone highlight on the album is “I’ll Believe in Anything,” which is actually a song from Apologies to the Queen Mary. And by “highlight,” I mean that it’s about half as good as the Wolf Parade version. My general recommendation is to steer clear of this. But if you’re a huge fan of the Wolf Parade, then…well, you should still probably steer clear of this.