Handsome Furs: Plague Park

Handsome Furs: Plague Park
Sub Pop: 5/22/2007

Handsome Furs is yet another permutation of the extended Frog Eyes/Wolf Parade/Sunset Rubdown/Swan Lake family. It's hard to sort out who's who when it seems that new side projects are announced at a rate of once per week. But the confusion is worth it when the result of the clusterfuck of musical collaboration in British Columbia is one outstanding record after another. Plague Park is the latest in a string of gems to emerge in the past few years.

Handsome Furs is Wolf Parade guitarist and singer Dan Boeckner's side-project with his poet wife, Alexei Perry. It's to be expected that there are enormous similaritied between Plague Park and Wolf Parade's Apologies to the Queen Mary, but as a vehicle for his own ideas, Handsome Furs succeeds in establishing its own identity. Largely due to entrusting a drum machine with all percussion duties, there is a restraint present on Plague Park that Wolf Parade lacks. While Apologies' charm lies in its ramshackle feel, Plague Park exploits the tension of Boeckner's guitar and voice writhing like caged animals against the bars of a dispassionate rhythm. Far from being the vanity exercise that most side-projects become, Plague Park proves that Boeckner is both indispensable to Wolf Parade and a talented, capable artist in his own right. The album suggests Perry's potential as well. I look forward to her inevitable participation in collaborations with other Canadian artists. Might I suggest a project with Leslie Feist, Owen Pallett and Carey Mercer? I think a name like Platypus Cotillion would be fitting.