Continuing in the release of brilliant Canadian alternative rock this year in the wake of Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs and Wintersleep’s New Inheritors, Wolf Parade are back again with new single, Semi-Precious Stone.
With the release of their 3rd album Expo 86 earlier this year, the release of the new single Semi-Precious Stone, which wasn’t on the album, comes as a bold out of the blue.
However, it isn’t the single that makes it so good. Semi-Precious Stone is OK, but the B sire Agents of Love is the real hit on the single. With vocals somewhere between Win Butler and James Mercer, Spencer Krug kicks off Agents of Love surrounded by drums, distorted guitars and a cool melody played on something that never seems definite.
The song sprawls from a pacey opening to a dark down-beat interlude before coming back to the up-tempo melodies that make this song so good.
Semi-Precious Stone is a great single at a time that seems to be lacking in decent music releases (which is why we hadn’t covered a new album since No Age, Everything in Between at the time of writing), not least of all because of the great sounds on B side Agents of Love.
Wolf Parade’s Semi-Precious Stone single review: 4/5
