We Are Wolves : Non-Stop Je Plie En Deux
For 2005, it seems that Montreal has become the “it” city, while having the word “wolf” in your band name seems like the “it” thing to do. Conspiracy or coincidence? Not important. But one thing that can be said is that We Are Wolves are not just some flash-in-the-pan or flavor-of-the-month. This Canuck trio makes loud and ear piercing indie rock with a heavy coat of punk primer and lots of electro analog mayhem.
From the moment the album gets started, Suicide will most definitely come to mind with the analog thrust and fuzzy bump of the opener “Little Biros.” If Trent Reznor wasn’t such a brooding lad, and if he had some funk in his blood back in 1989 when he was recording Pretty Hate Machine, there may have been a track on the album which would have sounded similar to the cocky and brash “L.L. Romeo.” The eardrum rattling and art damaged “La Nature” remains erosive and danceable all at once with its acid house high ends. The track maintains a maniacally galling mien similar to the one in “Frankie Teardrop” that made you piss your pants back when you were 13 and listening to it on a stormy night all alone.
Robo punk funk numbers such as “Snare Me” are most enjoyable and an analog Eastern jaunts like “Namai-Talia-Cambodge (60-Tabla-60)” contain the mystic use of well uh….a tabla drum. If you ever wondered what it would be like if Nitzer Ebb made music for an aerobic video than look no further than “Non-Stop,” complete with old school video game plummeting noises. There is even a song on here that would cheer up the tortured self-mutilating industrial Goth tweaker crowd; it goes by the name of “Vosotros, Monstrous” and contains air raid synth lines and a pummeling beat.
We Are Wolves has the edgy and walloping aspects of Black Flag and the booming harsh punk climate of the early Killing Joke records, with a blaring Atari-gone-haywire thrown in the mix. They are one of the best things to come out of Montreal since the 24 oz cans of Molson XXX.
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VCR – VCR
Liars – They Were Wrong, So We Drowned
Les Georges Leningrad – Deux Hotdogs Moutarde Chou