Back in the early 2000s, cool kids everywhere became obsessed with all kinds of lupine creatures. You had Wolfmother and Wolf Eyes and Aids Wolf. But only one furry, fanged crew — Montreal's Wolf Parade — really seemed to possess the cunning, coyote-like survival skills to live on that skinny swath between mass popularity and the hipster wilderness. With 2005's Apologies to the Queen Mary and 2008's follow-up, At Mount Zoomer, the pack of four proved that it was built for both your living room and the forest's remote underground lairs.
Now it's 2010, and the cool kids have all sold their shirts. But Wolf Parade's newest collection of canny indie rock, Expo 86, is keeping the howl alive. On brooding and strangely baroque anthems like "Cloud Shadow on the Mountain" and "Little Golden Age," the haunting, echo-y vocals actually sound like they were recorded in a cold, deep cave while the noise is equal parts catchy new wave and polished chaos.
