Once a mere side project for vocalist, keyboardist and songwriter Spencer Krug to vent his idiosyncratic musings to the full, it’s arguable that Sunset Rubdown have now overtaken his ‘proper band’ Wolf Parade in terms of critical plaudits.
Rubdown’s debut, ‘Shut Up I Am Dreaming’, was structured chaos and grand arpeggios. Their second LP, ‘Random Spirit Lover’, was an even more expansive, tangled affair involving wizards, leopards and diamonds. On their third offering the band are back in full rock-odyssey mode as invigorating, poignant and, dare we say, camp as ever.
At only eight tracks long, ‘Dragonslayer’ is the band’s shortest album yet, but concise it is not. ‘Dragon’s Lair’, for instance, sits at over ten minutes long and culminates in a huge apex of ringing guitars and cascading drums. But despite its sprawling messiness, sometimes with too many ideas spilling over at once, amid crashing cymbals and his trademark howling yodel,Krug has managed to craft his most accessible Sunset Rubdown recording to date.
The hummable, piano-led ‘Silver Moons’ is so 1970s Bowie it could sit quite comfortably on ‘Ziggy Stardust’ or ‘Hunky Dory’, though in typical Krug-style it’s delivered with an almost Meatloaf-esque grandeur bordering on the ridiculous. ‘Idiot Heart’, on the other hand, experiments with simple guitar grooves and textures. It feels almost like a regression from 2007’s effusive ‘Random Spirit Lover’ but is maybe the first time the band have produced a straightforward rock record. And it’s bloody fantastic to hear.
Krug’s lyrics however, remain as much of a mystery as ever, seeped in metaphor and unbridled romanticism. “You want to walk around like you own the joint / The way that Icarus thought he might own the sky / I said you cant… settle down until the Icarus in your blood drowns.” He wails histrionically, proving that where something can be said in three or four words, only twenty or thirty can do.
Holding ‘Dragonslayer’ up against its predecessors, it’s evident that Krug is building a solid back catalogue that only he can take credit for – unlike Wolf Parade, where he has to share the spotlight with co-writer and vocalist Dan Boeckner. And it remains as astonishing as ever how the very best songwriters, when left to their own devices, can flourish beyond all expectations.
8/10
Words: Dannii Leivers
