Words by Megan Gerrity

Wolf Parade’s self-titled EP was a revelation for me when it was released in 2005, a strange combination of near dissonant instrumentation and singing wrapped around melodies that got caught in your head. The songs on the EP, and on Wolf Parade’s first full-length, Apologies to the Queen Mary, were a fascinating contradiction – on first listen, you couldn’t predict where the song was going from one moment to the next, but each was as catchy as any pop or indie hit. The unexpected perfectly melded with the familiar to create a unique and exuberant sound, and I wondered where this band had been my whole life.

When their follow-up, At Mount Zoomer, came out in 2008, I couldn’t get the CD open fast enough, but when I finally heard it, I was disappointed. It wasn’t that the band had gone off in a new direction (they have side projects like Sunset Rubdown and Handsome Furs for that), but there was something missing. It was a little darker, a little more straightforward, a little more subdued. With the exceptions of a couple songs, like “The Grey Estates,” it seemed that the energetic, offbeat joy of Apologies was gone.

Now here’s Expo 86, and it all comes flooding back. From the first simple, powerful beats of Arlen Thompson’s drums under Spencer Krug’s unique vocals in “Cloud Shadow on the Mountain” to the chant-a-long chorus of the album’s final track, “Cave-o-sapien,” there is energy and life in each song on Expo 86. This may be due to the record’s short production cycle (songwriting started in November 2009 and the album was recorded in February and March of 2010) or to the sheer volume of output from the bands’ side projects (having other creative outlets to bleed off ideas and experiments). Or maybe it’s just some mysterious aligning of the planets.

Whatever the reason, what Wolf Parade fans get is a return to the joyous and unexpected. Luckily, it’s a return to tone without being a retread of their debut. Any nostalgia here comes only from 80s keyboard riffs like those opening “Oh You, Old Thing.” That song moves beautifully from those retro keyboards into a gentle love song that sounds like the band playing a prom scene in a John Hughes movie (which is nothing but a compliment). In “Palm Road,” they channel an indie rock Springsteen to lovely effect, before veering back to their perfectly odd melodies in “What Did My Lover Say? (It Always Had to Go This Way).” From the rocking (“Ghost Pressure”) to the reflective (“Pobody’s Nerfect” – terrible title, great song), Expo 86 is cohesive and upbeat, and reminds fans why we were so impressed with Wolf Parade in the first place (Sub Pop Records, 2010).