Musician Exposition

It’s a rare occasion to stumble upon an album that makes one wants to hit replay immediately after one full listen, but the latest from Wolf Parade, Expo 86, is exactly what you expect to hear from the Canadian indie quartet.

Named after the Vancouver World’s Fair, which ironically all band members unawaringly attended at the same time, Expo 86 hones in on the band’s talents as indie rockers mixing a mélange of synth sounds, boldly bouncing back from 2007’s rather lackluster At Mount Zoomer. After seven years together, Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug have finally found the ability to blend their two distinctly different personalities and talents to create an agglomeration of excitement under one solid album, even if they are pinging back and forth from song to song.

Opening the album is “Cloud Shadow on the Mountain,” with seducing drawn out electric-guitar rifts, and the off-beat utopian lyrics that we’ve come to expect from the band- “I was asleep in a hammock/I was dreaming that I was a web/I was a dreamcatcher hanging in the window of a minivan parked along the water’s edge.” “Ghost Pressure” is another radio sexy number with an ebullient synthesizer that would be worthy of any summer festival, but the true album highlight is the disco- danceable “What Did My Lover Say” with distorted guitars, driving drums and “woo-hoo’s” that will get you singing and rocking along.

Expo 86 is an unremitting album, with no song going unnoticed or unworthy to be present leaving fans anxiously awaiting what Wolf Parade will have in store for them next.