Handsome Furs Issue #39

Face Control

By Garin Pirnia
Published: March 1st, 2009 | 2:33pm

Montreal-based group Wolf Parade has diverged into many side projects, but Handsome Furs is the best of the bunch. Wolf co-singer Dan Boeckner supplies guitar and vocals while his wife Alexei Perry mans the drum machine and synths.

Predecessor Plague Park paid homage to Helsinki, and Face centers on the couple’s trip to Russia. The record is surprisingly upbeat and contagious — not what you’d expect from an album influenced by the Eastern Bloc. Glitchy drum machines burst through on opener “Legal Tender,” segueing into Boeckner’s signature vocals. “Don’t want to hear about the weight of the world,” he sings over fuzzy distortion and a serrated guitar. “(Passport Kontrol),” a seductive instrumental number, attempts to act as a transitional track, but instead swerves the record slightly off course, while the down-tempo “Officer Of Hearts’” wanes a bit with repetition and length.

The album’s best track, “All We Want, Baby, Is Everything” carries a hyper-romanticism and the lyric, “You know it pains me to treat you unkind.” It in the ilk of New Order’s “Temptation” lyric, “It pains me to treat you this way.” The processed electronic beats co-mingle into a satiating tapestry.