Shut Up I Am Dreaming — Sunset Rubdown
Absolutely Kosher
2006
Rating:


Indie rock has been searching for a new messiah ever since Jeff Magnum packed up his guitar at the end of Neutral Milk Hotel's "Oh Comely." That new savior may be Spencer Krug. Like Magnum, a member of the multi-band Elephant Six Collective, Krug performs in multiple bands — Frog Eyes, Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, the Canadian supergroup Beast Moans — and is brilliant in each of them, bringing a unique approach to indie rock that revels in arcane inspirations while still containing a populist sense of rock and pop.

Wolf Parade's "Apologies to the Queen Mary" remains Krug's greatest output to date, but "Shut Up I Am Dreaming" is no tossed off record. To even call Sunset Rubdown — now a full band containing Pony Up!'s Camilla Wynn Ingr, XY Lover's Jordan Robson-Cramer and Michael Doerksen — a side project diminishes the greatness of the work being done here.

"Stadiums and Shrines II," the second version of a song originally performed on Krug's self-recorded "Snake's Got a Leg," opens the album grandly and elegiacally. With a cymbal crash, mournful keyboard and stalwart guitar, Krug's howl "lift[s] it to the ceiling tiles / Of these stadiums and shrines" while feeling "sorry anybody dies at all these days." "Snake's Got a Leg III," another redo, begins with plinking old timey piano before giving into the reverie of a full-throttle rock song. The song changes tempos, time signatures and keys at a whiplash pace, especially for a song that's less than four minutes long, though the musical shifts always feel organic, feeding into a fable of snakes and why Krug doesn't want to live in the mountains.

The seven-minute "Shut Up I Am Dreaming of Places Where Lovers Have Wings" similarly unfurls in segments, beginning with Spanish guitar picking that gradually builds into a rock jam, then turns back on itself and ends up with the rhythm and chords of a New Wave song. Each section is beautiful, developing into the next as Krug asks everyone to not make a sound out of fear he will be woken from his reverie. Krug's surreal dreams of waterfalls wading inside wells and oceans that never listen are indeed the kind to be cherished, so when he says, "Don't make a sound," one eagerly complies and listens to the sonic wonders Krug has crafted.

Posted Friday, December 22, 2006

Link to this review:
http://filmzeus.pressbin.com/music/sunset.rubdown/shut.up.i.am.dreaming