Album Review: Thin Mind by Wolf Parade

Rating: NNNN It's now been 15 years since Montreal-via-BC crew Wolf Parade stormed the indie rock A-list with their swashbuckling debut, Apologies To The Queen Mary. But given all the personnel changes, side projects, extended breaks and sea changes in the zeitgest that have occurred since then, it feels more like 50. And yet, like the stopped clock that tells the correct time twice a day, Wolf Parade are proof that if you hold your ground long enough, the cultural tide starts to surge back in your direction.

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It seems size does not matter for Wolf Parade. Multi-instrumentalist Dante DeCaro, who had been working with Wolf Parade since 2005, left the band in early 2019, leaving the original trio of Spencer Krug, Dan Boeckner, and Arlen Thompson to get along without him. But if anyone expected the group to scale back their sound as a three-piece, 2020's Thin Mind wastes no time in shutting down that thinking.

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Wolf Parade will always live in the shadow of their debut. 2005's Apologies to the Queen Mary was one of the great statement albums of indie rock's blockbuster era, paving the way for years of similarly jittery, nervy bands and launching an entire multiverse of Wolf Parade spinoffs and side projects: Sunset Rubdown, Handsome Furs, Swan Lake, Divine Fits, Operators. It's a wonder they never burned out.

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Thin Mind occupies a weird space in Wolf Parade's oeuvre: their fifth full-length album, their second album after a five-year hiatus, and their first output in over 16 years as a three-piece, following the recent departure of former Hot Hot Heat member Dante DeCaro.   Unapologetically synth-forward, Thin Mind harkens back to the band's earliest EPs, albeit with an overhauled production value and a far glossier finish. Where "Julia Take Your Man Home" bounces with a "Heart of Glass"-style energy, the notably punchier, verging-on-vaporwave ….

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