Wolf Parade - Expo 86 (Review)

If memory and setlist.fm serve me correctly, almost half of the material Wolf Parade played in Manchester at their May gig was taken from their then forthcoming third record. Far from introductions of material the band were enthusiastic about whilst the audience blasé, the new songs constituted many of the highlights of the performance. Or maybe there’s just something to be said for having enthusiastic fans.

Expo 86 opener ‘Cloud Shadow on the Mountain’ doesn’t capture quite the same off-kilter rhythmic dexterity that ‘You Are a Runner and I Am My Father’s Son’ did, but it does remind you how well Wolf Parade work as a rock band for all their elaborate arrangement tendencies. I’ve always felt they’re a more complicated and difficult band than anyone seems to give them credit for. Spencer Krug has long been making a career of turning prog tendencies palatable. ’What Did My Lover Say (It Always Had to Go This Way)’ and ’In the Direction of the Moon’ are two of those moments that the ornate interplay between Krug and Boeckner reach spitting distance of the sublime and host instantly memorable choruses.

Wolf Parade are rarely a band to leave a lot of space in the production and Expo 86 is perhaps their most sonically dense release. For better or worse the songs leave little distance between anything, but they usually manage to not fly off the rails completely. Though I disagree with a great deal of the criticism of the band’s previous album At Mount Zoomer as being too indulgent, I’d cite ‘Language City’ and ‘California Dreamer’ as being two of its best cuts. They are however, perhaps not coincidentally, two of the songs to best balance the hooks and the excess, and for the most part Expo 86 follows suit. It wouldn’t be surprising if the record is called something of a return to form for the band, but ultimately it isn’t that much leaner than its predecessor. The songs are ever so slightly shorter, the balance between the two songwriters is somewhat steadier, but the record isn’t a u-turn, there’s still a million ideas squashed and compressed and beaten and dragged kicking and screaming into the context of what are still effectively pop songs.

If the album isn’t overwritten it might be over-performed. A lot of the excess and embellishment appears to be there because it can be, not because it was put there with carefully authored purpose. Although this is a minor criticism of an album that manages to hold together and run with its bloat at a pretty considerable pace, which has always been one of the band’s strong points. Let’s imagine Wolf Parade are a double decker bus, and Krug and Boeckner are throwing themselves to either side of it on sharp corners and managing not to send it careening into a ravine. That’s what’s they’ve managed again here, perhaps even more colourfully. Expo 86: all autobahn, no ravine.

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