Wolf Parade.
It's an album that's capable of being peppy and catchy ("Shine a Light") and conservative and sweet ("This Heart's on Fire") but whose calling card is warped, nasal, distorted vocals and stumbling polyrhythmic douchebaggery, the apex of which is "I'll Believe in Anything."
***
Ext. night. Two detectives peer at the corpse of a young woman who's bled out under a streetlight. DET. SMITH lights a cigarette.
DET. SMITH: Shit. Wolf Parade?
DET. JONES: Wolf Parade.
SMITH: Fuckin' A. Wolf Parade.
***
The first thing you'll notice about "I'll Believe in Anything" is the synthesizer intro. Because it's there and it's hideous and there's nothing else around and it just keeps going well into the verse, despite having no recognizable relationship to any other part of the music, like a five-year-old who's gone to the post office and the bank and the mall and after 20 minutes in Target simply will not abide running errands with his mother any more and has communicated this desire by removing his shoes and sitting in the middle of the Housewares aisle, the better to shriek. And everyone else just goes about their business because what the fuck else are you going to do?
***
Captain Regulus steers his starship directly toward the Sun. Maybe if he gets the Tarulian pirates to follow him the colonists can escape to hyperspace. Just a few more seconds. The Sun dominates his main viewscreen as the first Tarulian torpedoes hit the ship. The bridge is awash in the noise of explosions and sirens and the sound of air whistling through the hull breeches. Captain Regulus closes his eyes and whispers.
"Wolf Parade."
***
I love that most of the song is 3/4. It's frankly a little boring that so many rock songs are in 4/4, and while I don't know that "I'll Believe in Anything" is "rock" as such, it breaks the pattern. At the same time, there's just shit going on in the background constantly, so you never get completely comfortable in 3/4. And then, out of nowhere, into the last chorus, around 3:37 in the video, it switches meter abruptly to 4/4 and picks up speed, like a runner giving the last kick on the final straightaway of a distance race, and chugs all the way to the end.
***
"Wolf Parade!"
Sam turned toward the voice. He'd come as quickly as possible--the bus to Philadelphia, then the train through the afternoon, through the night all the way back down to Jacksonville--but had still taken the better part of a day. It was an hour before sunrise and the night air was frigid and damp, even in April in Florida. Sam slung his bag over his shoulder and looked for Courtney's face, a face he'd only known for a weekend, and hadn't seen in three months. He wondered whether he'd even recognize her--how strange, he thought, that they would be having a baby together and he might not be able to find her in a crowd.
But there she was, standing in front of a beat-up white Ford Focus, waving and smiling nervously.
"Wolf Parade!" he called back, and walked over.
***
The music video for "I'll Believe in Anything" is about a guy in Bourbon-era France who picks fights with people in an effort to get them to challenge him to a duel, in which he shoots them. There's no explanation for why he does this, and he doesn't get his comeuppance. It's just one dude expressing his senseless and indiscriminate contempt for everyone through violence. Which fits the song, really, because I feel like "senseless and indiscriminate contempt for everyone through violence" sort of sounds like this.
And for whatever reason, that just makes me love "I'll Believe in Anything" all the more.
***
He could hear the horses coming, the baying of hounds through the thicket. With his pursuers behind him and the cliff in front of him, there was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. The galloping got louder and louder, and soon was accompanied by the crashing of bodies through the thick foliage until one of the rangers appeared through the trees and onto the ledge.
The ranger leveled his gun. "Wolf Parade?" he asked.
The man squinted back and smiled wryly. He closed his eyes and drew in breath as he extended his arms.
"WOLF PARAAAAAAAAADE!" he shouted.
The bullets tore through him like stones through paper, and he fell over the bluff and into the river below.
