Handsome Furs
Plague Park
Release Date: May 22, 2007
Genre(s): Indie, Rock
Record label: Sub Pop
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Album Review: Plague Park by Handsome Furs
Very Good, Based on 2 Critics
Based on rating 7/10
What sets Montreal's Handsome Furs apart from Wolf Parade, the band for which frontman Dan Boeckner is probably best known, is tempo. Where Wolf Parade dips into more than their fair share of upbeat, even disco beat-driven, indie rock, Handsome Furs instead pull back and strip down their songs. They're upright, elegant, and above all melancholy, swinging between sparse, mechanical blips and lush, throbbing walls of sound.
Opinion: Very Good
As its apropos title reveals, Plague Park, the new full-length from Handsome Furs, is a series of juxtapositions, and these unlikely unions produce equally interesting and uncomfortable results. The binary of Wolf Parade guitarist Dan Boeckner and his fiancée, poet Alexei Perry, has produced a record in its likeness – equal parts charged guitars and electronic beats. Yet, even though the Furs sought to keep their productions to “guitars and drum machine only,” it becomes apparent that music with a minimalist mission can easily feel like there’s something amiss.