Band of the Week: Wolf Parade

Montreal’s Wolf Parade just announced that they’re touring North America again and you know what? That’s a damn good thing. They’re another band like Tapes n Tapes that it sometimes blows my mind that not every single one of my friends is intimately familiar with at this point. I mean, at the end of last year, I fell for their album Apologies to the Queen Mary in such a way that’s almost embarrassing to talk about publicly.

Sure, it was loose and jangling and raw, but I loved it for its imperfections as much as for it’s fantastic manic energy. To me, it’s one of those god albums where every song on it is extraordinary and I hadn’t obsessed over a cd like that since Broken Social Scene’s You Forgot It In People. At first, my favorite track on it was I’ll Believe Anything (which Rolling Stone called the "indie rock song of the year"), but over time, I came to call several other songs my pick of the moment, since there was just so much to like on it.

My girlfriend Christianne and I had tickets to go see them live at The El Rey on the night that she returned from a trip to France over the holidays, but her luggage arrived so late that we missed the show. I didn’t mind since I hadn’t seen her for two weeks and honestly that was all I really cared about at the time, but it’s great to hear that they’re finally coming back around. My almost unhealthy fixation on that album has leveled out somewhat in the last six months, but they still count as one of my favorite bands in years.

Wolf Parade and Frog Eyes will appear on August 25th at The Wiltern, which is located at 3790 Wilshire Boulevard. Presale tickets are available through Ducat King for $19.