Wolf Parade – At Mount Zoomer (2008)

At Mount Zoomer is in my opinion Wolf Parade's greatest album. Their debut album Apologies to Queen Mary was already a good album, but At Mount Zoomer is building on that and the songs sound more professional, without losing any of their edge. Also, there are a couple of really long songs where the band gets to experiment a bit more with sounds. This was the first Wolf Parade album I owned. It took me a while to get into it properly. I know this band sounded cool, but it wasn't until I had seen them live, that I understood how amazing some of the songs on this album were. This album was released in 2008 when indie rock movement was at its hight. There were so many guitar indie albums coming out at that period that it was difficult to get noticed, but I think Wolf Parade made a good job with this album on that front.

The album starts with Soldier's Grin which probably resembles the first album the most. There's the same kind of lo-fi organ sound in the beginning. The next song Call It a Ritual really shows something new for this band and I really like it. This song has depth like no other earlier songs and the dark and melancholic sound enhances the force of this song. It's one of the absolute stars of this album. Language City shows how big Wolf Parade has grown with their sounds. The guitars and pianos sound a bit like Arcade Fire's first two albums. Bang Your Drum is more experimental when it comes to sounds and composition. It sounds a lot like the other contemporary band, Menomena. California Dreamer draws influences from 70's Krautrock, which is kind of pioneering in 2008, because at that time hardly anyone else was looking for influences in that era, whereas now ten years later, we've seen many Krautrock revivals. The Grey Estates is much more generic upbeat indie rock song. This is what the album would've probably sounded had the band not really renewed itself as much as they did after the first album. Fine Young Cannibals shows a bit more of that simple garage rock sound that Wolf Parade got famous for in indie circles after their first album. An Animal In Your Care is a massive lo-fi piece with very experimental approach. It sounds a bit off-key and therefore requires a bit of getting used to. The best song is left for last. Kissing the Beehive is an amazing over ten minute epic that I didn't give full credit to before I saw it performed live at the Helsinki rock club Tavastia. This song worked insanely well live and there's so much room in this long song that the band could really play with sounds and take everything they could from their amazingly original sound.

Because I liked the live version of Kissing the Beehive so much and because I couldn't quickly find any official music videos from this album, I'm linking a live video of Wolf Parade perform Kissing the Beehive. It shows the amazing sound that the band has live. The two singers work perfectly together using their strengths as singers and the guitars and organs use all of their experimental sound capacity to create an amazing atmosphere. Watching this video makes me want to see this band live again.

Wolf Parade has never been one of my favourite bands, but I've consistently liked their music and I even feel like their music still sounds fresh even after ten years when I've gotten a bit bored with many other bands of the same era.

Listen to the album on Spotify.