Album of the Week: Sunset Rubdown- Dragonslayer

One could make the case that the first decade of the 21st century, at least as far as the music world is concerned, saw the emergence of Canada as a major force. Between bands like The Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, The New Pornographers, and Wolf Parade, Canada has inarguably been one of the prime movers in the indie rock arena. Interestingly, a lot of these bands branch into or out of other side projects/bands that are just as good if not better than the "main" bands, depending on the listener's sensibilities. One of the minds behind Wolf Parade, Spencer Krug, is involved in 3 other bands: Swan Lake, Frog Eyes, and Sunset Rubdown. This last band has always existed in the shadow of the other bands, in their early years being compared heavily to Frog Eyes and lately to Wolf Parade.

Around the time of 2007's Random Spirit Lover, I began to take Sunset Rubdown seriously as not a side project for Spencer Krug but another outlet for his prodigious and prolific talents. And while I thought his contributions to this year's Swan Lake album were not up to his usual level of quality, I now wonder if he saved all of his best material for Dragonslayer, the new Sunset Rubdown album, because it is, I daresay, the best thing he's ever done in any of his bands. I have been so taken with this album that I bought everything I could get my hands on by the band, which is something I never do. After hearing this album I am an official convert to the Church Of Rubdownology.

How exactly did this band surpass the mighty Wolf Parade, who I always thought of as Krug's focus?? Well, it's a combination of taking the lessons learned on Random Spirit Lover and Spencer Krug's gift for songwriting. On the aforementioned release, Sunset Rubdown crafted a dense-but-rewarding 'album for people who love albums', full of songs that blended into each other, songs in non-standard forms that had no obvious structures. When choruses or melodies appeared, they were often in fresh ways or unexpected moments. Songs would have two or three different hooks in fairly different sections such that you had to listen to the album as a whole to milk all the good stuff out. This same thing takes place on Dragonslayer but to an even more successful degree. It is more melodic and addictive, too, and brings to the fore something that was always a part of Krug's output that I never noticed: his self referential, self remaking aesthetic.

In listening through all of Sunset Rubdown's material, you'll find songs, melodic ideas, lyrics, and characters that appear a few times. It's something he possibly learned from the similarly self referential Dan Bejar (who is also 1/3 of Swan Lake with Krug) but done to an even greater degree, such as the three different versions of 'Snakes Got A Leg' and the two of 'Stadiums And Shrines.' But the ties between Krug's more recent work with Wolf Parade and Swan Lake is not like how Sunset Rubdown's Shut Up I Am Dreaming fleshed out Snake's Got A Leg. Rather, it's more like echoes and hints to Random Spirit Lover, enhancing and intertwining both albums in the process. There is also a re-imagining (and I would say an improvement upon) of 'Paper Lace', which was on this year's Swan Lake album. But I digress. The important thing here is the music and not all of these interesting but inessential ideas that float around it.

Dragonslayer is bookended by its strongest songs: 'Silver Moons' is a new Krug classic, with a lyrical delivery that slips around the beat brilliantly while 'Dragon's Lair' reminds one of the similarly epic album closing 'Kissing The Beehive' from Wolf Parade's At Mount Zoomer though seems half as long and does twice as much. In between are songs that never get old due to their linearity and complexity; as with Random Spirit Lover, in order to get to the hooks and "choruses" you have to listen to the entire album. Dragonslayer sticks more to the catchy and melodic side of things, so the rewards come faster. 'You Go On Ahead (Trumpet Trumpet II)' opens with rhythmic guitar scratching and a tribal drum groove that is waylaid by videogamey keyboards; the magnificent 'Black Swan' has a minimalist percussion section with Krug's vocals that bursts into a full on band section before collapsing back into eerie atmospherics and percussion and back again. Unlike Random Spirit Lover, which took a few listens and some patience to become hooked on, Dragonslayer is immediately great but only gets better and better with every listen. And as ever, Krug's majestic, poignant lyrics burst with images and poetry, from "confetti floats away like dead leaves in the wagon's wake" ('Silver Moons'), "you are a fast explosion and I'm the embers" ('Nightingale December Song'), to the twisting "my heart is a king/where the king is a heart/my heart is king/the kind of hearts" ('Black Swan'). Everywhere Krug and Co. continue their art-pop experiments with a spiky and bombastic mix of keyboards, guitars, percussion, and vocals.

Awhile back I wrote a somewhat useless and embarrassingly overblown review of Wolf Parade's At Mount Zoomer. Well, I feel even more strongly about Dragonslayer. It has made Sunset Rubdown my new "favorite band ever!!" and handily put them into the running for album of the year alongside Grizzly Bear's Veckatimest and Animal Collective's Merriweather Post Pavillion. Dragonslayer is rare: an album that is immediately good but gets better with more listens; an album that has the proper ratio of art/experimentation to pop/catchiness; a singular work, standing on its own, that nevertheless recalls and echoes other works from the band's discography (and Spencer Krug's in general). Highly recommended.

Swan Lake- Enemy Mine

I had a small twinge of delight when the collaborative side project/supergroup Swan Lake was first announced. I was still new to the work of the three musicians involved--Carey Mercer (Frog Eyes), Daniel Bejar (Destroyer), and Spencer Krug (Wolf Parade/Sunset Rubdown)--but the idea of them working together was, dare I say, exciting. I didn't know at the time that Spencer Krug was a sometime member of Frog Eyes, and that Frog Eyes had toured behind Destroyer and subsequently recorded an EP with him, Notorious Lightning And Other Works, so while there was some recorded evidence of the three as a creative force it was but a bite size chunk. Excitement and anticipation aside, Swan Lake's debut, Beast Moans, too often sounded like each member had brought songs from their main projects and let the other two add bits and pieces. It's an inconsistent, imperfect album but one well worth seeking out for fans of any of the three musicians. The take away from Beast Moans is that it never truly gelled into a project with a standalone identity. It never sounds like its own thing whereas other 'supergroups' do, if that makes sense.

Enemy Mine mostly succeeds at finally making Swan Lake into something other than "the other two playing in the style of whoever wrote the song." On almost every song, Mercer, Bejar, and Krug make better use of the gifts of the others, whether it be to bring their unique vocals along as a foil or duet of sorts or to coat the songs with their stylistic flourishes and trademarks. There may be no peaks as high as Beast Moan's 'Are You Swimming In Her Pools?' or 'A Venue Called Rubella' but Enemy Mine also sounds like a Swan Lake album and not an album of 'Sunset Rubdown with some Frog Eyes and Destroyer', 'Frog Eyes with some Sunset Rubdown and Destroyer', or 'Destroyer with some Frog Eyes and Sunset Rubdown.'

Enemy Mine falls just short of the masterpiece I think these three are capable of together, but it does improve on their debut in all the ways that matter. In fact, it's surprising and fresh for one reason: Mercer manages to turn in the best material. He was just sort of there doing his thing on Beast Moans and he didn't fit as well as Krug and Bejar did together. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but on Enemy Mine I sense that he stepped up his game. His songs strike me as the most committed; that is to say, they sound the most like what I imagined Swan Lake would sound like, as a new sound or set of ideas instead of the aforementioned 'two guys backing one in that one guy's style.' That Mercer opens and closes the album is a clear signal to the listener. It allows him to set the tone for and put the period on Enemy Mine. 'Spanish Gold, 2044', a swaggering, unhinged stroll, juxtaposes Mercer's free form ravings against Krug's worldless "oh oh ohs." Bejar's 'Ballad Of a Swan Lake, Or, Daniel's Song' takes his self referential myth-making to a new place, letting each Swan Lake member take a turn in a rowdy finish that kind of sounds like 'Row Row Row Your Boat' but way weirder and more inebriated. Meanwhile, Krug's best moment is inarguably 'A Hand At Dusk', which starts off sounding like a solo piece for piano but works in a synthesizer crescendo that, well, sounds like the sun going down, bridging the gap toward an ending that fits in both Mercer and Bejar but doesn't sound merely like Krug took a Sunset Rubdown piano ballad and had them sing something arbitrarily. Mercer may have arrived at the 'Swan Lake sound' a bit earlier and with better results, but with these two songs Krug and Bejar show they're catching on quick.

Still, it's Mercer's closing 'Warlock Psychologist' that successfully puts Enemy Mine into 'near excellent' status. Like his best work, it is both two minutes too long and yet could satisfactorily go on for another two. He and Krug end up trading off on the lyric 'Dotty's being taken away in the car' while Bejar does his patented 'I'm just going to sing syllables' thing before the song reaches a climactic ending with all three members singing something while a burbling keyboard draws the curtains closed.

Destroyer- Notorious Lightning and Other Works EP

Destroyer (aka Dan Bejar) got away with one of the most fascinating conceits in modern music with his Your Blues album. On paper, I should hate it: an album recorded with synthesizers and keyboards instead of a band. However, the result was a stunning synth-orchestra with some of Destroyer's best songs and arrangements yet. Once you get past the instruments, it's a thrilling pop album. Then, when it came time to tour the album, Bejar pulled another trick out of his sleeve: his backing band wouldn't be a battery of keyboards, MIDI controllers, and sequencers, but Canada's off-kilter rock band Frog Eyes.

Clearly Bejar enjoyed this tour and collaboration, because not only did he issue this EP of studio versions of those live arrangements but also continued to work with Frog Eyes's leader Carey Mercer, most specifically in the Swan Lake project with sometime-Frog Eyes member/Sunset Rubdown and Wolf Parade member Spencer Krug.

The inevitable question becomes: are these re-imaginings superior to the original?? This is a problematic question for a few reasons. One, it implies that one has to be superior to the other. You can like both the subtle MIDI orchestra of the Your Blues album and the reptilian brain-stem distortions of Notorious Lightning. Two, the question can be taken on a case-by-case basis. I prefer the surging, guitar powered 'An Actor's Revenge' to the original, but 'The Music Lovers' fares better as a delicate sip of synthesizer wine than it does a shot of whiskey with a beer chaser. Third, and lastly, the question brings up another question: is this how Bejar wanted the songs to sound originally, but decided to re-do them in a synthesizer orchestra?? Basically, the possibility exists that he always wanted the songs to be careening-off-the-rails and Your Blues was the re-imagining rather than vice versa.

Anyway, even if you don't like any of these Frog Eyes-enhanced versions, this is ideally what I want from an EP. So many bands squander the potential of this musical format, either by releasing glorified singles or weighing them down with unnecessary remixes. Rather, I like EPs made up of all new material. Maybe the band recorded some good stuff, but it didn't function in the context of an album proper. Or maybe, as in this case, the songs twisted into strange new shapes during the tour and merited an official studio document.

At any rate, I find Notorious Lightning and Other Works a fascinating listen even if, ultimately, the Your Blues album is the true masterpiece of the two. Again, that's not to say I can't like both. There's room in my life for both the full band stomp of the Notorious 'Your Blues' (with surprisingly ornate keyboards that hint back to the original version) and the reverb drenched, synthesizer-flugelhorn led Your Blues version. It's strange for me to end a review this way, but if you don't like this EP, you should try the album. And if you simply can't get past the MIDI-ified album, then try the EP.

Album of the Week: Sunset Rubdown- Random Spirit Lover

If there's a trend I'm beginning to see in 2008 amongst the indie rock leading minds, it's that this is the year of indulgence and complexity. Perhaps I'm making a mountain of a mole hill, but with Stephen Malkmus's album being all jammy and guitar hero-y, the forthcoming Silver Jews album being all accessible and poppy, and future releases by Wolf Parade and Islands having both awesome cover art as well as complicated, long winded songs, it's starting to look like everyone is following whims and/or pushing themselves to expand their art.

I'm going back to Random Spirit Lover by Sunset Rubdown from this past fall, and I'm finding this similar change had already taken place within this band. The songs are longer (only two songs are less than four minutes), more complicated, and less distinct--often the songs flow into each other and have no obvious chorus/verse/chorus structures. This isn't so much prog rock as it is a true album album.

Music critics have used phrases like 'rewards repeated listening' and 'a true album rather than a collection of songs' for many years, and it's exactly for releases like Random Spirit Lover that they were forged. I've been listening to the album off and on since its release last October but it's only recently that I've completely come around to it. Up to this point, it most definitely was good but I didn't see the greatness yet. Compared to Spencer Krug's work with Wolf Parade, Swan Lake, or even the last Sunset Rubdown album, it felt like he was purposely sabotaging one of his best assets: his ability to write off-kilter but insanely catchy songs.

However, given enough time, Random Spirit Lover reveals itself to be every bit the equal of those projects. While they may possess better, self contained songs, Random Spirit Lover possesses better moments. None of the songs from the album immediately stand out, but moments certainly do. 'The Courtesan Has Sung' begins with an echoed, overlapping vocal line and primitive percussion, a seeming minimalist indulgence with no merit, before Krug starts to sing wordless "woah ah oh"s and the keyboards and guitars strike and the whole thing positively glows out of the speakers. Meanwhile, 'Colt Stands Up, Grows Horns'--which is the weakest 'song' on the album--serves to take the sting off the brilliant 'Winged/Wicked Things' with its spacey, frozen ambiance before a crazed funhouse keyboard outro leads us into the mid-tempo 'Stallion' which begins the second half of the album. I don't know if it's actually true, but from the time that keyboard outro begins and Krug comes in on 'Stallion', it feels like the longest stretch of time on the album without vocals. This gives the whole three song package a tinge of entering the second half of a story, as if an all instrumental intermission has occurred before the curtain rises on the next act.

The problem with an album like this is that if you're the sort of listener who just wants to get to the catchy pop moments, you're going to hate this album. It's difficult in the sense that it only rewards people who will stick with it and enjoy not just the main course of a meal but the aperitifs, appetizers, desserts, and digestifs as well. You could skip around to the moments or songs you like best, but it doesn't have the same effect it does when you listen to the whole thing and come to these heights naturally. With Random Spirit Lover the old adage holds true: it's about the journey, not the destination. The first time I listened to the whole thing in its entirety, it was during a power outage. Forced to kill time with just my iPod, I gave it my full attention in one chunk rather than the piecemeal listens I had given it in the past. I loved the experience, but afterward I couldn't remember which specific songs I liked.

This will be why people who just want quick-and-dirty three minute pop songs won't like it, and why people who want something more will love it. You really need to set aside an hour and give yourself over to it completely. Just as you would devote more time and attention to a complicated film, novel, or videogame, Random Spirit Lover asks more of the listener but it also provides richer rewards. You may not listen to it every day, but when you're in the mood for a full meal and not just the main course, you'll find a lot to digest here.

Swan Lake- Beast Moans

People like to throw around the term "supergroup" as if it actually means anything anymore. Every time a few guys from other bands start a band together you hear that they're a "supergroup." I don't know about you, but the idea of "supergroups" becomes totally unappealing once you've listened to great musicians or artists thrown together at benefit concerts or music festivals. The cold realization is that it takes time for people to get used to each other, and it is exceedingly rare that people who've never collaborated together could produce something substantial on the first try. It's fun to make up dream bands--Hendrix on guitar, John Bonham on drums, that kind of thing--but the truth is they play entirely different styles and would take awhile to either learn to play in each other's framework or create something wholly new.

So, then, Swan Lake, which combines Dan Bejar (solo artist under the moniker Destroyer and the secret weapon of the New Pornographers), Carey Mercer (brilliant howler of Frog Eyes), and Spencer Krug (sometime member of Frog Eyes, main force behind Sunset Rubdown, and a significant creative half of Wolf Parade). At first glance this line up wouldn't make sense to anyone who isn't familiar with Destroyer's work. After releasing the synth/keyboard based Your Blues album, Dan Bejar decided to tour with Frog Eyes as his backing band, transforming the orchestrated and synthetic affectations of the album into a rocking and rollicking barnstormer. If you've ever seen Bob Dylan live in the past few years and witnessed how his band transforms the songs into new and fantastic shapes, then you have an idea of what the Frog Eyes pairing was like. Anyway, Bejar, Mercer, and Krug enjoyed the tour so much they recorded an EP under the Destroyer name, Notorious Lightning and Other Works, and made plans to record an album together. Thus, a year or so later, the Swan Lake project was born.

Where exactly does Beast Moans fall on the scale between "disparate musicians taking turns playing in each other's style" and "creating something unlike anything the three have produced before"?? Well, more of the former than the latter. Imagine me saying that with a tinge of disappointment and you've got the general crux of the issue. Beast Moans is a bit of a slippery album because I feel like Dan Bejar and Spencer Krug make better collaborators than either of them with Carey Mercer. This is no knock on Mercer or Frog Eyes, but that band's style is so distinctive and unhinged that one gets the feeling that here Bejar and Krug help make Mercer's songs more coherent and traditional while he, in turn, makes their's more unpredictable and odd. Consider 'The Partisan But He's Got To Know', which is just a typically great Frog Eyes song until Bejar and Mercer trade lines toward the end, adding much needed flavor syrup to the reverby Slushie that is Frog Eyes. Metaphorically speaking. On the other hand, consider album closer 'Shooting Rockets' which, though written by Bejar, is an apocalyptic dirge buried beneath dense guitar soundscapes and clattering percussion. Compare this to the version of the song that appears on Bejar's recent Destroyer album Trouble In Dreams in a cleaned up and much more enjoyable form.

Some new ideas do appear on Beast Moans, and promise greater things on the inevitable, all-but-released next album. After Bejar's magnificent 'The Freedom', the song segues into 'Petersburg, Liberty Theater, 1914', which has a title like a Frog Eyes song but belongs to each member equally. Over a repetitive drum beat, glistening guitars, and downright beautiful keyboards, Krug and Bejar harmonize very well before trading off vocals to Mercer, who is commended for singing in a fashion somewhat unlike his usual style, much calmer and almost speak-singing.'Pleasure Vessels', though Mercer penned, switches between reverb drenched walls of sound and clean guitar chording, a mood piece as much as a song.

It's always hard for me to review a "supergroup" album and not declare a MVP, so to speak. Were I forced, the easy victor on this album is Spencer Krug. Though we all loved the Wolf Parade album and Sunset Rubdown's Shut Up I Am Dreaming, he really proves himself one of the best and most consistent songwriters of the Canadian indie scene with 'All Fires' and 'Are You Swimming In Her Pools?' which combine his love of repeating everyday phrases with poetic/romantic imagery. The latter presents such gems as "please is not a word I ever said quietly" and "I hope you find your mother there" alongside the flat-out amazing second 'verse' which begins with the following three lines:

Are you running up her riverbeds and navigating long fingers of a hand?
Because fingers make the hand
And rivers make the land

I want to give some credit to Mercer and Bejar, but their best works lies elsewhere as far as I'm concerned, and I feel like their best contributions to the album are still overshadowed by Krug. It's true that they probably pushed Krug to this level and/or helped him realize his songs better than he could have with his other bands, but one gets the distinct impression they didn't bring their "A" game to the proceedings. Props to Bejar, though, for managing anything as good as 'A Venue Called Rubella' while he's also busy dividing his output between Destroyer and New Pornographers.

Though I do genuinely enjoy this album, I also feel that the next thing they release will be even better. Other than Bejar, who played it safe on his last two releases to diminishing results (I'm still baffled that people like Challengers by the New Pornographers so much), Mercer and Krug seemed to take the lessons of this collaboration to heart. Both of the last albums by Frog Eyes and Sunset Rubdown were phenomenal, and represented great artistic steps--if not a leap--for each. Whatever the future holds for the Swan Lake project, rest assured that its first product, Beast Moans, is well worth seeking out for fans of any of the three minds behind it.

Destroyer- Trouble In Dreams

Most people like to divide Destroyer's work into the delicious and immediate songs for the New Pornographers and the intricate and studious for his own project. I've always had a problem with this inclination--for starters it forgets his Swan Lake project--because it means he consciously handpicks certain songs for each and I've never got the feeling he is that self aware. This, despite what almost every other critic constantly says about him: that he's becoming a self parody, all an act, wordy and poetic but doesn't mean anything he says, etc.

Me, I've always got the impression that he tries to make the best record he can each time out, and if the results vary, well, that's as much a matter of inspiration not striking as it is the methods and players he chose at the time. Interesting, then, that the players and methods for Trouble In Dreams have been carried over wholesale from his last album, 2006's much loved Destroyer's Rubies. The phrase "diminishing returns" may come to mind, and it's spot on. Trouble In Dreams is not a bad album, but it can't help but feel like an inferior version of Destroyer's Rubies.

I will give the album credit for at least restoring my faith in Dan Bejar as a songwriter. After the release of Destroyer's Rubies he went on to work on the Swan Lake collaboration with Carey Mercer and Spencer Krug. The resulting album, Beast Moans, almost wholly belongs to those two, with Bejar's contributions either subtle or lackluster. Then there's the last New Pornographers album, Mass Romantic, which is their weakest to date. Not coincidentally, it contains Bejar's weakest songs for the band where normally his songs were among the best. So I found myself looking forward to his next Destroyer release with some trepidation, and hallelujah, it's actually good. Career highlights abound on the album, like the drunken and thrashing 'The State', long psych-rock epic 'Shooting Rockets (From The Desk of Night's Ape)' (a remake of a song from the Swan Lake album), nuanced and delicate 'Introducing Angels', and coy Dylan-esque piano driven 'Rivers.' If every song is not a homerun, there are at least enough moments where the bases are loaded to warrant a listen.

Yet I don't want to praise Trouble In Dreams too much. It virtually defines the phrase "more of the same, but not as good." 'Dark Leaves From A Thread' sounds like a warmed over Destroyer's Rubies outtake, all frantic changes and melodious-but-flaccid lead guitar. Then there's the needlessly long 'My Favorite Year', with its momentum killing and impossible to understand "you reside in" refrain and pointless, wordless vocals. And while this may definitely sound like splitting hairs and wanting this album to be something it's not, Trouble In Dreams begins and ends weakly: 'Blue Flower/Blue Flame' is too mellow for an opener, while 'Libby's First Sunrise' runs off inconsequentially and gives one no sense of satisfaction. Compare this to Destroyer's Rubies which opens with the epic and dramatic 'Rubies' and ends with the energetic and playful guitar rock of 'Sick Priest Learns To Last Forever.'

All in all, one hopes that Destroyer does the impossible and produces something both new and better with his next release. My feelings for Trouble In Dreams are mixed and muddled. Taken on its own, it's a very good album. However, nothing exists in a vacuum, so it's also an inferior version of Destroyer's Rubies, though still not bad by any means. Fans are advised to pick this up immediately, but everyone else should seek out his other, more different work first.