Back in the early 2000s, cool kids everywhere became obsessed with all kinds of lupine creatures. Maybe it was irony. Maybe it was rabies. Or maybe the moon had slipped off axis. Whatever the cause, almost everyone between the ages of 16 and 28 was wearing a howling wolf's head t-shirt and naming their fledgling band after these beasts.
You had Wolfmother and Wolf Eyes and Aids Wolf. But only one furry, fanged crew -- Montreal's Wolf Parade -- really seemed to possess the cunning, coyote-like survival skills to live on that skinny swath between mass popularity and the hipster wilderness.
With 2005's Apologies to the Queen Mary and 2008's follow-up At Mount Zoomer, the pack of four proved that it was built for both your living room and the forest's remote underground lairs.
Now it's 2010 and the cool kids have all sold their shirts. But Wolf Parade's newest collection of canny indie rock, Expo 86, is keeping the howl alive. On brooding and strangely baroque anthems like "Cloud Shadow on the Mountain" and "Little Golden Age," the haunting, echo-y vocals actually sound like they were recorded in a cold, deep cave while the noise is equal parts catchy new wave and polished chaos.
To be wolfish, it's music that makes you want to breed beneath a full moon.
Wolf Parade. Wednesday, November 10. Fillmore Miami Beach, 1700 Washington Ave., Miami Beach. The show starts at 8:30 p.m. and tickets cost $21.50, plus fees. Visit livenation.com.
