The Triangle

Issue date: 2/29/08 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: MCT Campus "Sunset Rubdown," an indie rock band from Canada, was hailed as one of 2007's best albums

"Random Spirit Lover" by Sunset Rubdown explodes into your ears. The band's sophomore album offers us the lyrical tornadoes and off-kilter clash of instruments only musical genius Spencer Krug could conjure. "The Mending of The Gown" is the first and best song on the album. This tune is far too hip to be hipster and is something much too individualistic to even be Indie. Its originality made it NPR's pick for song of the day on Jan. 8.

Krug, who is a part of musical ventures Wolf Parade, Swan Lake and Frog Eyes, as well as Sunset Rubdown, has a screechy, awful voice that is so strange, and that makes him incredibly talented. His quivering voice is perfectly imperfect and it suits his piano and electric guitar melodies. You will never be happier to hear a man wail than when you play this album. Krug has a sense of poeticism, incoherency and idiosyncrasy unique to his own sound. He sounds like no one before him and sets an astoundingly high bar for anyone that will come after.

Repeatedly pushing his own standards higher and higher with all four of the bands that he is involved with, "Random Spirit Lover" meets the unique and wonderful expectations that he has set up for himself.

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