2020 is here and Wolf Parade has welcomed it openly with their second release after their five-year hiatus, Thin Mind. Featuring 10 tracks and 42 minutes of playtime, this album has a lot of material. Songs in this album mostly follow an alternative rock style, an exception being, “Against the Day”. Although there was a decent amount of material, this album seemed to lack experimentation.

“Thin Mind” feels a little generic, especially compared to how important their first album “Apologies to the Queen Mary” was to the 2000s indie music scene. I thought the same about their previous album, “Cry Cry Cry”. I remember liking that album at the time, but I haven’t found myself going back and listening to it, except for a couple of songs. “Thin Mind” is also quite enjoyable, although I started to lose interest at certain times. This was particularly the case in the middle stretch. The album starts off strong with “Under Glass”, “Julia Take Your Man Home”, and “Forest Green”. Unfortunately, they don’t really have that special something that made me love their first two albums so much, but they’re upbeat and fun. But after those three songs, it all starts to blur together a little bit. Things pick up toward the end though, and the song “Against the Day” is great.

“Against the Day” brings us a refreshing twist of electronic and experimental sounds, along with a danceable groove. This is the kind of song I love to hear for a band like Wolf Parade, as it shows the lack of fear, and abundance of creativity. Overall, I’m happy with the album and I appreciated the effort put in by Wolf Parade.

Across the indie music genre, some lines seem to be lost in creativity, but it doesn’t mean that there isn’t development being shown by the artist as presented in this case. It also certainly doesn’t mean that this type of album can’t encourage the artist to put something out much more, “out there” creativity wise. I’m excited to see what’s to come for Wolf Parade as their sound develops and old themes present themselves such as in, “At Mount Zoomer” and, “Cry Cry Cry” respectively.

Recommended Listens: Under Glass, Julia Take Your Man Home, First Green, Against the Day

-Derek Henderson, Jett Vreeman