CRY CRY CRYing crying over you...

As a longtime Wolf Parade admirer, I was eagerly awaiting their latest release, entitled CRY CRY CRY, when I heard them play a few songs off the album this past summer at Shaky Knees music festival in Atlanta. To show my devotion, not only did I catch their set at the festival, but also saw them perform a late-night show the same day. The new songs were very well polished and would later have a lot in common with the string of other songs on the album. The morning they released EP 4, I had just arrived to work at 6AM and like most early mornings, pulled out my phone and earphones to listen as I performed daily tasks, opened Spotify and found myself shocked as to my dismay that after searching for Wolf Parade to hear old tunes, there was new material lying there before me. Six long years since Expo 86 was released and the band went on a temporary hiatus, they reunited and produced fresh and unique new material. Before going into the EP and the full-length more, I will talk a little bit about the hiatus and then detail how that impacted the new material.

 For just about every artist, they come face to face with theinevitabe objective of living up to their freshman masterpiece. Produced by Modest Mouse frontman Issac Brock, Apologies to the Queen Mary was released in 2005 and they successfully managed to produce now three more albums, each different in their own way, consistently progressing and unlike so many bands, never lazily reverting to the previous album's sound. Keyboardist/singer Spencer Krug and guitarist/singer Dan Boeckner both fueled by poetic artistry have side projects that allowed the duo to collaborate in Wolf Parade with equal contribution. Expo 86 however contained this feeling of rivalry between Spencer and Dan, dueling back and forth where you can clearly tell who wrote what song and control being the main objective. The band took a hiatus shortly after the Expo Tour in 2010. 

Dan released one final album the following year with now ex-wife Alexei Perry as Handsome Furs, then after dealing with divorce, partnered up with Spoon frontman Britt Daniel to form Divine Fits and successfully released A Thing Called Divine Fits in 2012. After several tours, Dan created a new side project a year later called Operators with his girlfriend, electronic artist Devojka. They released several EPs between 2014 and 2015, then finally producing a full-length album in April 2016 entitled Blue Wave.

Like Dan, Spencer continued to write and perform as his side project Moonface. He collaborated with Finnish instrumental space rock band Siinai to produce distortion-laced ballad album Heartbreaking Bravery early 2012. However, unlike Dan, after a short tour with Siinai, he retreated by himself to write a solo album entirely on piano. With enough songs to create a full-length album, he released Julia With Blue Jeans On a year later. I had the privilege to not only watch Spencer perform that year but spoke with him after the show to discover that he was touring in his van with a microphone as the only piece of equipment and playing venues/clubs that had a piano. He did not even bring merchandise to sell while on tour, because playing music was his only priority. After a shot of whiskey and sharing a toke of a joint, I asked him about the likelihood of Wolf Parade reforming and he said, "yeah, we all want to play together again, but it just comes down to when we're all available to do so." Not only was he right about the guys and himself eventually reuniting three years later, but within that time range, continuing his minimalist style, he released an EP titled City Wrecker and then cranked up the distortion with fellow members of Siinai again to release My Best Human Face. 

EP 4, Blue Wave and My Best Human Face all came out last summer, allowing Dan and Spencer to rest a moment after recording all that material, and then go right back in the studio to write and record Cry Cry Cry. EP 4 was released to wild success and was great because it sounded and felt like the guys reuniting, jamming and taking that hiatus allowed them to mature individually but also allowed their egos to diminish as opposed to the clashing in Expo.  Jamming provided the key to something new, but also exchanging a lot of what they learned throughout the hiatus. 

Cry Cry Cry feels like a collaboration without the competition. The songs do not scream artistry because they are not individually trying to create the greatest thing they have ever made like in the former albums. Both Dan and Spencer bring together the upbeat dance-punk sound with the melodic ballad poetry. This of course can change over time through reevaluation with more listens, but it is like how in Dylan's lesser famous albums there is somehow this humble love of making music that is different from the obvious masterpieces. Wolf Parade loves writing, recording and performing music and you can definitely hear that enthusiasm, artistry and passion in each song. Time comes away as the genius of this release, demonstrating that quickly working and rushing a release most of the time produces sloppy material and once it is out there, they cannot take it back and redo the material. That sort of impulsiveness generates material that makes the artist want to cry, cry, cry and not the good way as Wolf Parade's album title gladly wears.