Album Review: Handsome Furs – Face Control

You don’t see many husband & wife bands – much less duos – in rock ‘n’ roll, especially once you remember that Jack and Meg only pretended to be married. But Dan Boeckner of Wolf Parade and his wife Alexei Perry (a short-story writer, according to Wikipedia) decided with 2007’s Plague Park to give it a go anyway (with, going by Metacritic, mixed results). Boeckner is obviously a busy guy as of late, because not long after, and with Wolf Parade’s At Mount Zoomer in between, Handsome Furs are back with Face Control. I haven’t heard the duo’s debut record, so I can’t tell you how it fares in comparison, but I can say that Face Control is better than Wolf Parade’s second record (and any one of the countless side-releases Spencer Krug’s churned out since Apologies to the Queen Mary). Boeckner sings and plays guitar while Perry works the drum and synth machine, and while the sparse instrumentation’s inherent lack of variation at times is limiting, on the whole the minimalism inspires a claustrophobic sense of intimacy. In Wolf Parade, Boeckner has always been the songwriter with easily discernable classic rock influences, adding some heart and grit to Krug’s more proggy explorations. Out of all of the rock dinosaurs, he’s reminded me the most of Springsteen (probably because of his husky, grizzled voice). The influence was previously most obvious on Wolf Parade’s “This Heart’s On Fire” – the title alone is almost a Bruce parody – but on Face Control Boeckner embraces the Boss to the fullest extent yet. Tracks such as “I’m Confused”, “Legal Tender” and “All We Want, Baby, is Everything” sound quite a bit like Bruce might’ve around ‘82-’85 if he had swapped the E Street Band for a few of them computerized music-making box doohickeys (uncoincidentally, those three are the record’s best tracks). Boeckner’s better than a simple homage artist, though – you’ll recognize the influences, but not so much that you’ll feel as if, given the requisite time, ego and drugs, you could do it yourself. Fat chance – when the kick-ass riff of “I’m Confused” reappears for the first chorus, you’ll know you’re listening to one seriously talented husband.