Sunset Rubdown
Dragonslayer
Jagjaguwar/Inertia

It’s been said before, but it’s honestly hard not to dwell on just how much Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner get up to when their band Wolf Parade is between albums. Boeckner makes lurid electro-pop with his wife, Alexei Perry, in Handsome Furs – coming soon to our shores – and Krug has the solo-gig-turned-band Sunset Rubdown as well as the low-key supergroup Swan Lake with the frontmen from Frog Eyes and Destroyer. Given the underrated status of Wolf Parade’s second album – last year’s At Mount Zoomer – and the praise heaped on Handsome Furs’ recent Face Control and Sunset Rubdown’s new Dragonslayer, there’s even a threat of the latter overshadowing the former.

The problem with their respective solo outlets however, is that the core attraction of Wolf Parade is the give-and-take between Krug and Boeckner. While Boeckner cruises along as coolly as ever in Handsome Furs, Krug veers a bit too far into self-indulgence in Sunset Rubdown. That’s especially true of Dragonslayer, which supplants the strengths of 2006’s Shut Up I Am Dreaming and 2007’s Random Spirit Lover with decadent sprawl, fairy-tale lyrics, and little relief. Extending eight tracks to more than 49 minutes, the album often feels one long song.

Amid the slow-burning drain of it all, however, there are some interesting themes at work in Krug’s songwriting. He has often ascribed human flaws and emotions to assorted forest creatures in the past, which he continues here, but he’s also concerned more and more with the roles we adopt and shed in life. Actors and musicians factor into ‘You Go On Ahead (Trumpet Trumpet II)’ and other songs, and an overarching narrative about a would-be classical hero hammers home Krug’s fascination with the face we put on for the world and what lies beneath it.

He even evokes Icarus, Apollo, Rapunzel, Samson and Delilah, and other mythological figures while weaving a heroic fantasy of his own. Beyond that, the album is notably bookended with confetti, which appears in both the opening ‘Silver Moons’ and closing ‘Dragon’s Lair’. Krug – or his character – declares early on that he believes in “growing old with grace”, and there’s some arch deadpan in lines like “I was held up at yesterday’s parties / I was needed on the Congo line” [sic] and “My heart is a kingdom where the king is a heart / And my heart is king, the king of hearts”.

These lighter flashes of whimsy make for some striking moments, but mostly the album sags under its own weightiness. And while there’s an admirable depth to the band’s instrumentation throughout, Dragonslayer remains a mildly intriguing addition to the Sunset Rubdown oeuvre, but one that doesn’t spell greatness.

Doug Wallen