Handsome Furs

Plague Park

[4/5] One needs a flow-chart to keep track of all the bands started by today’s Canadian creative class, with the chief offshoots populated by members of Broken Social Scene, Metric and Stars. But consider Handsome Furs (aka Wolf Parade vocalist/guitarist Dan Boeckner and his fiancée Alexei Perry) a strong new contender in the side project derby. On Plague Park, the duo create wistful electronic torch-songs indebted sonically to the Velvet Underground and Joy Division, but lack the droning distance of the former and avoid the icy robotics of the latter (even if Boeckner’s muttering drawl is often a dead-ringer for Beck, the modern king of detached cool). The martial drum programming on “Handsome Furs Hate This City” is tempered by shimmering, Nintendo-like lullaby-synths, while “Dead + Rural” features fuzzed-out guitars and girl-group howling a la the Jesus And Mary Chain; even better is the spooky “Dumb Animals,” whose combination of macabre organ and wind-tunnel feedback sways and clatters like a doomed march to the gallows. (SUB POP) Annie Zaleski