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[Ishotdanieljohnston]

On my fifth, maybe sixth listen of the new Wolf Parade now, and I think its solid. Language City, Fine Young Cannibals and The Grey Estates deffinite highlights.

What do people think?

[Dizzydes]

ok first listen i was disappointed, then i listened to it twice more and realized it was hot, not quite as hot as apologies, but still hot nonetheless.
Language city, California dreamer and kissing the beehive are definitely highlights in this album

[DMart]

At this stage it's DEFINITELY one of my top 10 albums for the year - California Dreamer and Kissing the Beehive really sold the album for me. On first listen I was a bit dissapointed - it didn't seem to have that same mood or emotion as Apologies to the Queen Mary - but once I got used to the idea that they were, in fact, different albums (I am aware of how stupid this sounds) I really got into it. I think I'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite out of their two albums now. It took me a while to get into AttQM as well, after impulse-buying it based on one or two favorable reviews.

[edit: I have no idea how I even punctuated that so badly the first time around. Fixed.]

[Ishotdanieljohnston]

Yeah I'm really stuck at this stage as to which is the better album. At first I didn't think Zoomer had the same emotional depth as Apologies, but now I'm thinking this is actually just more complex. The sound is fucking huge through the headphones.

[DMart]

I guess the reason I didn't think it had quite as much depth emotionally (on the first few listens) probably came from the opening track - that synth at the very start sets a different mood to the first few bars of AttQM. Also, the sound is a lot cleaner on AMZ.

[Tom]

I'm really starting to get the feel that both Boeckner and Krug have improved as lyricists over the past 3 years. That said, AMZ definitely has a different feel to it (the cleaner production for starters) than that of AttQM. Not necessarily a bad thing, but the album feels like a split between their respective solo projects and 'Fine Young Cannibals' sounds kind of like a long Spoon track.

I agree with DMart, it's definitely Top 10 material and 'Kissing the Beehive' sells the album completely. Unlike 'Dinner Bells' on AttQM, it actually is engaging from start to finish and sustains the two different moods simultaneously throughout the whole song. Their individual songs are usually really good so one that they co-wrote being awesome comes as no surprise to me.

[carrotosaurus]

After listening to it once through, I've come to the conclusion that it's a really solid album, but I'm not sure that it's going to top AttQM in my book. We'll see after a few more listens.

[MusicScribbles]

Wait, did this leak? Where is it...
I hate listening to albums on Myspace.

[carrotosaurus]

I grabbed it on vinyl last night, so it's definitely already released....

[imagist42]

I'm pretty sure it's been leaked since April, FYI...

That said I have yet to give it a proper go. I liked most of the tracks when they leaked but I didn't get too heavily invested in it. I will probably buy it sometime next week and listen until I'm sick, though.

[Ishotdanieljohnston]

I don't think its been released in Australia yet, so my hard copy is going to have to wait.

I'm enjoying this more with every listen.

[Dizzydes]

its definitely released in Australia, i saw a vinyl copy at rocking horse in Brisbane the other day. it cost the same as ordering it off sub-pop when you include postage.

[Ishotdanieljohnston]

Thanks for the tip, my girlfriend said they didn't have it at JB, but I shall scout further.

[Inlander]

Australian release date was the 14th of June. I've had my bought C.D. copy for a week now.

[ashashash]

Oh man, I also didn't realize that this was out.  Damn.  Where have I been?

[Ishotdanieljohnston]

Australian release date was the 14th of June. I've had my bought C.D. copy for a week now.

Do you like it?

[pat101]

http://www.cokemachineglow.com/record_review/3606/wolf-parade

(In my opinion) a really well written/funny review for the album if you're interested in that type of thing

Highlight paragraph

I’m a prog geek, at least in part, and I’m telling you: this album is less and more important than that, because it still means liking Wolf Parade means something even as it interrogates what that something is and makes it harder to choose between Krug and Boeckner (not for lack of trying) as ways to situate yourself within a selective interpretation of what the band does or is. Hell, At Mount Zoomer might even be contentious! Or maybe it isn’t, probably, since 2008 seems to think that out is the new in as long as it isn’t too out. And that’s the main reason the Sub Pop one-sheet’s comparisons work: The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway saw Genesis reeling in all of their prog fetishes, internalizing them within pop songs; Marquee Moon saw Television transforming proto-punk into prog. In Sub Pop’s estimation, then, At Mount Zoomer is like, say, condensing the entire riffage of King Crimson into a 2×2 Bento Box and icing it with the best riff in the world ever—yes, I’m talking about the hook of Mariah Carey’s “Always Be My Baby”—and then having the Buzzkills record it in a basement somewhere. It’s a cubist approach to music, as opposed to the surrealist rendition; everything fits against everything else comfortably, rather than everything always trying to escape. And I’ll cop: it’s actually easy to hear the fractured strains of “Back in N.Y.C.” in the keyboard riffs that drive Boeckner’s “Soldier’s Grin,” easy to hear Gabriel-ian theatrics in Krug’s every yelp, easy to hear Verlaine-ian technique in the guitar solo on “Fine Young Cannibals.” But Wolf Parade aren’t drawing in so much as filling up. If, as is the typical perception, their music used to play urbanism (Boeckner) and anti-modernism (Krug) against one another, I think they’re starting to see the relationship between the two and, consequently, to capture a whole mess of details inside the structure of their aesthetic, making this album more cerebral than the immediately ragged Apologies to the Queen Mary.

[Nuance]

It's certainly more of a grower than Apologies to the Queen Mary was.  Good deal more proggy as well.  I think I like them better writing shorter, punchier tracks, but I have to admit that I simply cannot stop listening to Kissing the Beehive.

And dear Lord, that cokemachineglow review reads like Faulkner.  I had to read it three times just to figure out what he was trying to say.  And I have no idea what King Crimson in a bento box is supposed to tell me. 

[Inlander]

Australian release date was the 14th of June. I've had my bought C.D. copy for a week now.

Do you like it?

It's good, but I haven't listened to it more than a few times, because in the same shopping trip I also bought the new Silver Jews album, and every time I go to put on some recently bought music at the moment I naturally gravitate towards that instead.

I will say that so far I've liked At Mount Zoomer more with each listen, but so far I don't like it as much as Apologies. But that may well be because Apologies came out of nowhere, whereas with the new one I had an idea of what to expect. The perennial second-album quandary, I suppose!