Wolf Parade will always live in the shadow of their debut. 2005’s Apologies to the Queen Mary was one of the great statement albums of indie rock’s blockbuster era, paving the way for years of similarly jittery, nervy bands and launching an entire multiverse of Wolf Parade spinoffs and side projects: Sunset Rubdown, Handsome Furs, Swan Lake, Divine Fits, Operators. It’s a wonder they never burned out. Not all of the records Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner recorded in the wake of Queen Mary were essential, but all of them delivered moments of inspiration.
And yet for all the dependable music these two have released over the years, for casual fans looking for a quick Wolf Parade fix, the go-to will always be Queen Mary. In hindsight, Krug and Boeckner’s prolificacy has cut against them. If they hadn’t so thoroughly flooded the market, perhaps there might have been more excitement around Wolf Parade’s 2017 reunion album Cry Cry Cry (casual fans may never have noticed the group’s 2011 hiatus). Their default has always been to keep the music flowing, though, so just a year and a half later, they’ve followed up that album with a similar one. Like Cry Cry Cry, Thin Mind is perfectly calibrated to evoke nostalgia for Queen Mary without ever quite recapturing the odd, jittery intensity that made that record so beguiling.
Thin Mind is the band’s first album since the departure of longtime guitarist Dante DeCaro, but that absence hasn’t shrunk Wolf Parade’s sound any. Returning producer John Goodmanson makes sure of that. He’s quietly become one of indie rock’s great maximalists, almost incapable of recording an instrument that doesn’t pop. He leaves every surface so sleek you can see your reflection in it. Especially if you’ve sat out a few Wolf Parade albums, it can be a shock to hear the rusty, lo-fi patina of the group’s Isaac Brock-produced debut replaced by the crystalline guitars of an Interpol record.
With that radio-rock sheen, Thin Mind ironically plays like the big leap the band could have attempted in the wake of Queen Mary, during the years when alt radio still looked to blogs as a farm system for the majors. Their sound now feels less like a paranoid revision of ’80s synth-pop and more like an homage to ’80s rock at its most direct. “Under Glass” opens the record with the charging gusto of Elvis Costello’s new wave stompers, while “Wandering Son” rides the dopamine-spiked power chords of a Rick Springfield hit. Dramatic pianos tease “As Kind as You Can” with “Don’t Stop Believin’” pomp, and a thick coat of synthesizers lacquers everything.
It’s all bright and spirited, but also a little obvious, which is disappointing coming from a band that once ran freely with its most left-field impulses. Krug’s songwriting, too, has also grown more direct. “Julia Take Your Man Home” gender-flips the setup of Rae Sremmurd’s “Come Get Her,” swapping out the dancing party girl for a drunkard carving dicks into the bar and prattling on about cocaine. It’s fun on paper, but the premise wears thin well before the song ends.
Thin Mind periodically feels like Wolf Parade’s own Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, a conversation between buddies from a fading era unsure of where they fit in now. “I’m not in love with the modern world,” Boeckner sang on Wolf Parade’s signature song. Fifteen years later, the world isn’t any less modern, and the band isn’t any more at home in it. “Up and down the street there’s a grey procession, they’re going to have a funeral for your profession,” Boeckner sings on “Wandering Son.” It’s almost too apt: a mid-’00s band singing about obsolescence. Wolf Parade’s sound was once state of the art, but Thin Mind captures only intermittent reminders of how wild and wonderful their moment was.
Buy: Rough Trade
