When Wolf Parade’s sophomore release, At Mount Zoomer, arrived in the mail a couple of months ago, I was so afraid of how it would hold up to 2005’s utterly brilliant Apologies to the Queen Mary that I couldn’t even listen to it right away. Thankfully, I got over that and dove into what is easily one of my favorite records of the year. From the instant the erratically descending keyboard notes of “Soldier’s Grin” hit my ears, I could envision co-frontmen Dan Boekner and Spencer Krug going down in history with the same sort of cultish, outsider adoration that Neutral Milk Hotel enjoys not because they sound like NMH per se but because their unapologetic fusion of sweeping orchestral pop and challenging, discordant passages (see the albums 11-minute closer, “Kissing the Beehive”) is so inimitable and out of step with the times that it’s impossible not to love it equally for its brashness and its beauty.
Mon., July 14, 8 p.m., 2008
