Google "Handsome Furs" and you will find no shortage of awesome promo pics.
One of many bands in what I like to call the "Wolf Parade Family", Handsome Fur is composed of WP guitarist/half-the-time frontman Dan Boeckner and his wife Alexei Perry. Their all important "genres" tag on Wikipedia describes their music as indie rock and post-punk revival. Handsome Furs's first album, Plague Park (2007), was not much of a departure from the typical Wolf Parade sound, just with less instrumentation and a drum machine serving as pretty much the entire rhythm section. It was a solid effort from what most brushed off as a little WP side project. On the 2009 follow-up, Face Control, the band polished their sound by seemingly adding more guitar riffs while not holding back at all on the synths. They shamlessly and admirably aped Joan Jett's "Bad Reputation and New Order's "Temptation" on album standouts "Talking Hotel Arbat City Blues" and "All We Want Baby Is Everything", respectively while also penning some strong wholly original tracks such as "Legal Tender" and "Radio Kaliningrad". But enough about the past output from the Furs, we're here to discuss what they've been up to as of late.
Just last week, Dan and Alexei announced their new album, "Sound Kapital" would be coming out this June along with a tracklist and word of a sound inspired by electronic and industrial music from Eastern Europe in the 80's. Boeckner also explained that this was the first Furs album to be written entiirely on keyboards. Then, in what has to be the shortest ever interval between an album being announced and leaking, a copy of "Sound Kapital" starting making it's rounds throughout the series of tubes. I have been fortunate to hear it (particularly so, since I got this opportunity the day before I saw them play at Brooklyn's The Bell House last Thursday) and I have no problems saying it's the best album I've heard so far this year. I should have maybe prefaced that statement by acknowledging that I have found this to be a pretty underwhelming year in music thus far (it is, after all, only April which means like baseball season in April, lots can change). That said, I do feel comfortable at least saying this is the best Handsome Furs album.
The best way I can describe Sound Kapital is to say that it sounds exactly what you would expect a Handsome Furs album to sound like in 2011. Pretty much all the songs feature synths, lots of synths, and there are plenty of driving beats, or is it beats that drive the songs? While some fans were concerned about this album being written on the keys would mean there'd be no room for guitar riffs they can rest assured that they are mistaken. Songs like "Damage" and "Cheap Music" feature what can be considered standard HF guitar parts. For me though, the standout tracks are less guitar centric songs such as the first single "What About Us", (which can be downloaded at the link with the news above) and my current jam at the moment, "Memories of the Future" which you can listen to here.
You can also check out "Memories..." and a couple other songs from the new album at this site which has some solid quality videos from their concert last Thursday. If you're at all curious as to what the Furs are like in their coked up (more or less their own admission, Boeckner says he likes to write about what he knows and on Thursday night they were open about more than one song being about cocaine) glory, this is a good place to start. The Furs truly put on a frenetic and enjoyable show, certainly getting more into than the crowd at The Bell House did. If they are coming to your area anytime soon I highly recommend checking them out as well as Sound Kapital when it drops in June or has a higher profile/quality leak.
