Local Band Weekend Trilogy Part Trois : Handsome Furs Hates This City?

As promised, here's the third (and final) installment of the Local Band Weekend Trilogy! (I know I know it's one day late, ethics papers don't write themselves supposedly. Who knew?)

Handsome Furs

Just so that everybody's on the same page : this is NOT another Spencer Krug side project nor is it a Wolf Parade album with more synthesizers and drum machines.

Oh, this is something else altogether.

The dynamic duo that is Handsome Furs is comprised of the other half of the Wolf Parade songwriting team, Dan Boeckner and his wife Alexei Perry. This whole whirlwind adventure started back in the winter of 2005 and without releasing a SINGLE record, they've already toured Europe with the likes of Modest Mouse and David Cross to name a few.

Just for comparison's sake, if I were to tour Europe today with nary an album to my name, I'd probably be opening for a guy singing nothing but Wham! covers on open mike night...or even worse...I could be opening for the 'Hoff himself. (he's HUGE in Germany supposedly, somebody's gonna have to confirm that for me)

Needless to say, Handsome Furs are good, real good.

They've been hard at work last winter on their new album, "Plague Park", due out on May 22th through Sup Pop Records. The whole record screams melancholic/borderline depressing with its bare bones melodies and Boeckner's haunting vocals, but don't let that fool you, in this case depressing = good. On "What We Had", the minimalist synth/drum machine folk rock is as good a track you'll hear this spring, and with the tons of great songs already out there in 2007, that's saying a lot. It even has some cowbell in it and like my mother always said "A bit of cowbell goes a long way". And on "Handsome Furs Hate This City", amidst all the synth-heavy melodies, there's a real sense of the love/hate dichotomy between our respective urban vs. rural lives.

Hell, just makes me want to move to the North Pole or something.

Hopefully I'll still get cable up there.

Handsome Furs will be having its album launch party on May 28th 2007 @ Club Lambi (buy here)

Triple link bonanza comin' at ya! :

Handsome Furs' Myspace site
Handsome Furs @ Hype Machine
Handsome Furs' first video for "Dumb Animals" @ YouTube (awesome!)

This officially marks the end to my Weekend Trilogy : Questions? Comments? General philosophical musings?

Email me @ evilrobotparade@gmail.com !