Sunset Rubdown Random Spirit Lover CD

Sunset Rubdown: Jordan Robson Cramer, Michael Doerksen, Camilla Wynne Ingr, Spencer Krug.
Recording information: Breakglass Studios, Montreal, Quebec, Canada (01/2007).
While initially a side project to Spencer Krug's primary band, Wolf Parade, this Montreal quartet over the course of a few albums has grown formidable in its own right. RANDOM SPIRIT LOVER--the band's Jagjaguwar debut--toys with similar sonic territory as previous efforts with plucky baroque touches intermingling with the rock instrumentation, but a newfound group energy has overtaken the outfit, and the results are thrilling. At times sounding like Arcade Fire with even more of a Bowie fixation, RANDOM SPIRIT LOVER captures the excitement of a band finding the thrumming rock core in a hummable tune and a harpsichord, much like the Arcade Fire's FUNERAL did with a string section.
Vocalist/keyboardist/mad pop scientist Spencer Krug made the jump from California (Absolutely Kosher) to the Midwest (Indiana-based Jagjaguwar) for 2007's Random Spirit Lover, a cacophonous slab of 12 tracks that bleed into each other like a dismembered, dystopian version of the Flaming Lips' Soft Bulletin. The occasional Frog Eyes and full-time Wolf Parade member's third foray into the solo world feels a lot less like a foray and more like a firm commitment. Like Frog Eyes, Krug weaves fractured, complex, cacophonous pop songs glued together by a distinct love for melody, but where Frog Eyes wants to violate every part of your body, Sunset Rubdown wants you to stick around and watch the carnage, not be a part of it. Random Spirit Lover bristles with the same manic energy and odd beauty that made 2006's Shut Up I Am Dreaming so rich. Part lo-fi bedroom project and part hi-fi tribute to the excesses of '70s art rock, standout rockers like "Mending of the Gown," "Up on Your Leopard, Upon the End of Your Feral Days," and "Taming of the Hands That Came Back to Life" never stick around long enough to grow tiresome, as Krug keeps things economical. Fans of "Blackberry Way"-era Move, Berlin-era Bowie, late-period Of Montreal, and the Danielson Famile will eat this up like the candy it is. ~ James Christopher MongerSpin (p.125) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "[A] creepy, absorbing third album...piling on layers of tinkly sounds to create a carnivalesque aura."