Since their breakthrough in 2005, Wolf Parade have stayed strikingly true to their name, trampling fiercely through release after release. This includes the band's own surprisingly impressive early EPs, their hugely popular debut, Apologies to the Queen Mary, the solo albums of keyboardist-singer Spencer Krug as Sunset Rubdown (mindblowing in their own right), and The Handsome Furs, guitarist-singer Dan Boeckner's project with wife Alexei Perry.

In fact, since the first album, both Krug and Boeckner have developed such strong songwriting voices in their respective side-projects that At Mount Zoomer had the potential to be a horrible mess, oversaturated with personality, and overstuffed with quirky keyboard tones. Fortunately, the songwriting is refined and concise. The band has chosen more conservative and minimalist arrangements to give the flamboyant singing styles of both Krug and Boeckner room to flail around. And they do.

At Mount Zoomer features the best songs of Boeckner's career thus far, songs that twist and power forward with the melodic intuitiveness of Bruce Springsteen and a restraint that concentrates Boeckner's incredibly talented guitar playing and ever-improving lyrics. Krug has a few hits himself, songs that are as undeniably personal as any of his work, though, thankfully, he never pushes his bandmates into the background.

While the album can't offer the same shock as Wolf Parade’s debut in presenting an incredibly well-developed and unique-sounding new band, the band have not only honed their skills individually, they all seem to have a powerful shared understanding of how their songs fit together. There is not a beat or note wasted on the album, with every instrument and every layer contributing exactly the right counterpoint to the others. Such accomplished interplay is hard to achieve, making the quality of Wolf Parade’s craft that much more impressive.