It remains a very good album, but you always get that sense that he's always just one chord progression away from greatness this time around.
Endearingly sorrowful without descending into outright misery, Leaders Of The Free World is exactly what we the listeners should expect from a band's third album.
In short, it's no Mass Romantic, but it will do quite nicely.
Outside Closer weaves an oddly distinctive set of roundelays between the Air-like poppiness and cheery melancholia of the negatives and the Massive Attack jams with The Clash in Reykjavik melancholia of winter 72, concluding with two of the most depressing songs I’ve ever heard.
Wolf Parade is a great band, and while one will automatically think of Brock when they first hear You Are a Runner I Am My Father’s Son, (or any song featuring the first of the band’s two vocalists, Spencer Krug,) many of the album’s strongest moments actually come when they more closely resemble other bands.
Certainly, it feels as though Takk emerges from a group who, despite arriving at the zenith of their capability, has, at least for the time being, run out of things to say.
Arular is a fantastic amalgamation of dozens of styles, too many to be classified by one, perhaps even deserving of a whole new genre.
Like 2003’s Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, Before the Dawn is commendable for its almost obsessive attention to detail that has produced a collection of gorgeously layered and dense songs without ever sounding laboured.
The great achievement of Feels is that it throws everything at every track yet never loses sight of the tunes themselves.
I can see your raised eyebrows, I can tell that you are dubious, but I can assure you, gentle listener - these are the goods.