As the Wolf Parade juggernaut gathers steam, the quintet's charismatic keyboardist, Spencer Krug, somehow found time to follow his recent self-titled Sunset Rubdown EP with Shut Up I Am Dreaming, a collection of his strongest, most fully realized non-Wolf Parade material to date. Over the course of just one year, Sunset Rubdown's progressed from Snake's Got a Leg's rickety and insular lo-fi basement tape sound to a fuller-bodied EP to this exceedingly well-dressed, multi-hued glam pop.
Now operating as a full band (here, a quartet), Sunset Rubdown more closely resemble Wolf Parade but still maintain the rougher ragtag sound of their previous recordings. A good example is triumphal opener "Stadiums and Shrines II", which continues the practice of updating Krug's songs and echoing his past catalogue (all while building a personal cosmology). This version includes the same lyrics and general melody as the scrubbier slip-n-slide on Snake's Got a Leg, but otherwise it's an entirely different monster. Krug sheds the off-kilter dust-bowl harmonium and stuttering underwater feel of the original for a cleaner, less warped anthem. Now, when he sings "there's a kid in there/ And he's big and dumb/ And he's...kinda scared," instead of going by unnoticed, it'll make you lose your breath.
In his more fleshed-out, metaphysically epic form, Krug consistently finds ways to yoke disparate parts; there's so much inventive stitching, in fact, it makes it tempting to offer a play-by-play with color commentary for every song. Beyond writing catchy tunes and packing them with whispers, mallets, harpsichord, and patches of cheapskate drum machines, he's an intriguing presence. Instead of bubbling along at one level, he roller coasters and raves, mixing nonsense with sharp observations and sadness with puns. This jam-packed, unbridled sound ought to heighten the Frog Eyes comparisons, but complicated by the groups' shared tour and Krug's former role as one of Carey Mercer's band members, that contrast is a bit of a bore. Besides, Krug doesn't stick to any particular style beyond his approach to his howls.
More interesting to note: The cumulative effect of Shut Up I Am Dreaming surpasses "I'll Believe in Anything"'s ostensible perfection. That's a brilliant song, yes, but this a brilliant album, ballooning with those sorts of moments on repeat. See, for instance, the speedy ragtime re-versioning of "Snake's Got a Leg III", which feels comparable to Wolf Parade's "Dears Sons and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts"-- albeit with a scrubby sense of pathos-- or jaunty sawdust kicker "They Took a Vote and Said No". As in many of Krug's songs, there seems to be some sort of moral, as if he's writing warped and warbling Aesop Fables. Here, it's "a kid" who "wants a ride", learning that nothing comes for free and "there are things that have to die so other things can stay alive." Some fleet-fingered guitar work and crashing drums obscure the lesson; after a pause and piano line, we're handed a kick-ass axe-toting coda.
Then there's the piano-based ballad "Us Ones in Between", on which he pulls out his deck of unexpected metaphors woven with an endlessly ambient tone-generating guitar: "You are a waterfall/ Wading inside a well/ And you are a wrecking ball/ Before the building fell." Again, there's one of those tenderly surrealistic morals: "I've heard of creatures who eat their babies/ I wonder if they stop to think about the taste." Through an inversion, Krug himself becomes the creature as well as the eaten, asking, "Oh baby, mother me before you eat me." In other new turns, there are female backing vocals provided by former Pony Up! member Camilla Wynne Ingr, and on many tracks glockenspiel or xylophone tap a ringing background.
The opening piano tingle of "Swimming" churns into haunted-house circus music and then it bursts and blooms into the catchiest little music-box reprise of "The Dust You Kick Up Is Too Fine" from the debut. These echoes are everywhere, the resampling a weirdly pleasant and satisfying sort of minimalism, offering listeners a chance to see his work from various angles.
This is rich stuff and it won't be surprising if some listeners prefer Krug's maniacal flights of fancy to Apologies to the Queen Mary's sense of balance. There's obviously much to be said for Wolf Parade's addictive push/pull switch hitting-- that overflowing seep between Bowie/Eno and jittery Iggy/Springsteen-- but it's also incredibly fun watching pop songs pulled apart and restitched into tiny rococo monuments and tossed skyward. All the Wolf Parade comparisons are a drag, sorry, but they're inevitable. Plus, the context's important: Because Krug followed some of the best material on Apologies with this elegant wallop, he's looking increasingly like an important songwriter rather than just another flavor-of-the-month.
