Send "Sunset Rubdown " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Drownedinsound |
 The practical, prosaic, documentarian's way to open a review of the new Sunset Rubdown album would be to note that it’s largely recorded live, and eschews the multiple overdubs of its predecessors, Shut Up, I Am Dreaming and Random Spirit Lover, all the better to reflect the stamping-flailing, wuh-huh-hooing bacchanal of the live-shows (and damn is there a lot of wuh-huh-hooing, when it comes to Sunset Rubdown.) That seems a little disingenuous, given that Dragonslayer actually opens in medias res, in a personal mythos that could be contemporary, or could be a fantastical past, but either way feels truthful for being so bewildering. Haven’t you ever felt you’re not in Kansas anymore, that your loneliness, or maybe your new love, puts you centre-stage in an epic of your own making, with all your friends heroically ambitious, and wingfooted with youthful arrogance? That’s just the opener, 'Silver Moons', which feels like the culmination of all the doomsaying Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown have been setting to music over their last few albums. Spencer Krug dispatches the line "maybe those days are over, over now..." with such conviction you'd think civilization had come to an end, and we failed… but didn't it make pretty colours as it burned? As the song plays out, "...under all the folds of the dresses that you wear / there’s an ocean and a tide / a riot in the square..." is sung with such reverie that you remember 'apocalypse' just means 'unveiling' – that all this is a dance, and if it's going to end, there's something erotic in having been there… That’s just the opening....full text |
| Avclub. |
| In less than five minutes, “Silver Moons”—the opener from Sunset Rubdown’s fourth album, Dragonslayer—moves through gentle exposition, a bell-driven march, and a gorgeous bridge composed of only voice and piano, before finishing with high harmonies floating atop a squall of feedback. It isn’t a song so much as a journey, and as with the rest of Dragonslayer, its epic ambitions are fulfilled. Frontman Spencer Krug—who’s also integral to Canadian indie acts Wolf Parade and Swan Lake—has crafted a record more complicated and accessible than any he’s done before, with eight songs, but dozens of discrete musical ideas. Gone, for the most part, are the experiments in atonality that marked previous outings, particularly 2007’s Random Spirit Lover. In their stead are gorgeous melodies and intricate song structures that demand multiple listens to even begin to comprehend. Krug has always treated his oeuvre as malleable. New songs serve as sequels to old ones, and thematic elements run through and across his various discographies. One song on Dragonslayer, “Paper Lace,” was first recorded as a winsome bit of acoustic folk by Swan Lake, complete with backing vocals by Destroyer’s Dan Bejar. Sunset Rubdown’s take is different: It’s propelled by a guitar that sounds like steel drums, and it eventually peaks with some intriguing counterpoint between a keyboard and one of the album’s finest guitar solos. Most bands couldn’t write a song as good as “Paper Lace.” Krug did it twice....full text |
| Adequacy |
| Through the course of its previous two albums—the first one being, for the most part, a Spencer Krug solo album—Sunset Rubdown has successfully altered its sound with every release. The same holds true with the group’s third album, Dragonslayer, an album that while still maintaining that precociously exciting music, sounds nothing like its previous effort, Random Spirit Lover. And in more ways than one, this is not a bad thing because it showcases a growing and proven band, just beginning to spread its wings. The exciting ending is a thrilling experiment in every possible way. The penultimate steamer, “Nightingale/December Song” is just that, a variety of pounding tom drums and stomping pianos that precede the glory of the closer. As Krug sings, “We all burn in different ways. You are a fast explosion and I’m the embers,” the music chugs away without ever losing a step. Opening with a piano that recites the melody that will be the song’s prevailing theme, “Dragon’s Lair” is a shining piece of beauty disguised in eccentric singing, dooming, drowning chords and stampeding horses of guitars and drums. An amazing creationist at heart, Krug delivers one of his finest songs with the music’s precise and calculated feel. The album’s eight songs stand out like sore thumbs in comparison to the overall sequencing on Random Spirit Lover. Whereas that album’s songs were purposely positioned into and around each other—each careening into the next and flowing from the last one’s stream—the songs on Dragonslayer are independent entities with a heart and soul of their own. The album’s majestic feel can be deeply rooted in “Apollo and the Buffalo and Anna Anna Anna Oh!”. Shimmering guitars and a playful keyboard line depict the story of a searching soul in the midst of the moon, stars and animals all around him. Growing old and willing to accept it sounds like a sad tale but told in this manner, with blissful music to pair it with, you can’t lose....full text |
Sunset Rubdown lyrics
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