HANDSOME FURS - Plague Park Review

Since North America's officially made the leap from the industrial age to the information age, it's probably safe to say we're now all at least as comfortable working with our brains than our hands. That we're probably more at ease wrestling with a drum machine's knobs than getting sweaty battering a kit, that programming analog drones and fine-tuning keyboard presets is as natural as learning power-chords and busting your high-E string. Much of the modern world works with its brain, not its hands or its back, so it's only natural music would follow suit....full text Behind every great man there’s a great woman, or so the saying goes.

The Eurythmics knew this, and there’s a good chance those spending their time getting acquainted with Wolf Parade’s Dan Boeckner’s side-project will get this. Handsome Furs, which began two winters ago, is comprised of Dan Boeckner and his fiancée, Alexei Perry, both of whom share guitar and drum machine credits while Boeckner handles the vocals....full text I can see I’ve come unprepared. I should have an analogy at hand. This is new media after all. Spencer Krug is to what was that as Dan Boeckner is to come again. I could have played the false Irish Troubadour (check the choruses of “They Took a Vote and Said No” and “The Men Are Called Horsemen There”) against the Son of the Soil (listen to the tribal ululations on “Hearts of Iron” and “Dumb Animals.”). Man, that could have been sweet....full text