Wolf Parade, At Mount Zoomer

I wasn’t sure how I would feel after listening through At Mount Zoomer, but I wasn’t expecting to be pleased. Maybe I’m too pessimistic, but sophomore albums have let me down enough that I’ve come to fear and almost expect the “sophomore slump.” And I felt Wolf Parade, bulletproof as may be in my mind, were still susceptible to this.

You see, the band’s debut, Apologies to the Queen Mary, was a terrific, anthemic indie-rock album that made several best of lists in 2005, a year that saw many other Canadian bands also making great albums and thus keeping the media’s eyes focused northward. And it was a Mr. Isaac Brock who helped record Apologies, adding even more size to the already large waves the band was making at onset of their career. So the pressure such a flashy entrance creates combined with Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner’s creative commitments to a total of five other bands over the past three years seemed to spell out second album woes. To me, anyway. Like I said, maybe I’m too pessimistic. But as I also said, it’s not unfounded. And the most worrisome thing about a middling sophomore record is that it can become a slope towards mediocrity.

So, as you can see, the arms with which I received At Mount Zoomer were less than open. In the end, though, I found myself more satisfied than mortified, as the album is another step in the right direction for Wolf Parade. Not as broad a step as Apologies, by any means, but the band is still full of ideas, and most of them are relatively good ones (relative, of course to the high standard of their first release).

Arlen Thompson’s drumming on Wolf Parade’s debut was a driving force, guiding the songs with punk rock gusto and adding integral punctuation throughout. So with him behind the sound boards for Zoomer, I expected at the very least that the drums would again be a source of dynamics, if not more so than before. This is curiously not the case, however, and with the exceptions of the machine-gun snare beat of the fantastic opener “Soldier’s Grin” and the swiftness of album highlight “Language City,” the drumming on the record is pushed to the back of the mix, serving more as a metronome than an exclamation point.

“Call It a Ritual” plods along with a mundane waltz beat and thick, ominous piano chords. “Fine Young Cannibals” is similarly clunky, the drums an afterthought here as the song is guided instead by a palm-muted guitar riff and Boeckner’s vocals. This track brings up another of Zoomer‘s most glaring flaws, which is the band’s over-indulgent tendencies. Since vocals are a main focus on “Fine Young Cannibals,” the two instrumental minutes at the end of the track come off as awkward and meandering. Likewise, Zoomer‘s epic, near-eleven-minute death march “Kissing the Beehive” overstays its welcome by about five minutes, making the song more tedious than compelling.

The other noticeable change on their second release is how Wolf Parade use their keyboards. Much like drums on the album, the synthesizers have been pushed to the back, used for ambience more often than hooks. When keys do lead the charge, they are much more traditional, with the rollicking piano lines found at the beginning of “Language City” or the Rhodes piano on the prog-disco dance of “California Dreamer” serving as some of the better results of this transition.

I am still a far cry from losing my weariness towards sophomore releases, but Wolf Parade has aided the healing process with At Mount Zoomer. While the album’s departures from its predecessor end up being more harmful than not, causing it to drag in places, Zoomer has enough well-executed moments to make it a worthwhile listen and has proven that Wolf Parade are more than just one-album wonders. But I never had any doubts about that.