CD OF THE WEEK: Swan Lake, "Beast Moans"

4 1/2 stars
(Jagjaguwar)

Superficially, the major backers of anti-immigration legislation are nativist red staters afraid of a massive influx of migrants from Latin America. But unbeknownst to most, it’s actually a shady cabal of indie music label lobbyists pushing border reform laws down the nation’s throat, because they know the truth: the Canadians are stealing our stages.

It’s this whole supergroup thing. Our neighbors to the north just play well together. First came megaband Broken Social Scene, the New York Yankees of Canuck indie rock. Then the infectious New Pornographers trickled south, displacing deserving American-born power pop peddlers. And now there’s Swan Lake, set to make Williamsburg, Brooklyn look like Flint, Michigan.

But before “Beast Moans” dropped, it really didn’t seem necessary. More resumé-padding from the over-recorded Dan Bejar (Destroyer, New Pornographers) and the stretched-too-thin Spencer Krug (Wolf Parade, Sunset Rubdown, a dozen other bands). Plus Carey Mercer of Frog Eyes, who may or may not be crazy. On paper, Swan Lake shouldn’t work that well.

Fortunately the record is a beautifully grotesque creation, one that Swan Lake’s members could never have devised on their own. Together, they form a disfigured, fucked-up beast whose aching, thickly-layered moans elicit both shock and pathos.

The monster’s brains are Bejar. Leaving listeners with headscratchers like “The freedom/to be alone with the freedom,” he builds on the dense mythos he’s created on Destroyer records. But somehow he makes abstraction and mystification attractive. Any song named “A Venue Called Rubella” shouldn’t be fun, but the out-of-tune saloon piano makes the ditty a rollicking, midtempo good time and the eponymous refrain catchy.

Mercer provides the body, and it is his frantic guitar work that drags “Beast Moans” forward. “The Partisan But He’s Got to Know,” a Mercer feature, lurches forward like some baroque, “Swordfishtrombones”-vintage Tom Waits tune, almost spiraling out of control until Krug and Bejar enter to tame the melody.

Krug’s the heart and the project’s steadying influence. “All Fires,” appearing halfway through the album, is his most effective vehicle to date. He howls the tale of a flooding town in which drowning villagers clutch debris to stay above water (“Five hundred pieces means five hundred float/One thousand people means five hundred don’t.”) above gentle tremolo guitars and whistling synths. It’s the high point of the album, and a moment that’s hard to exorcise.

The songs don’t entirely escape the specter of the musicians’ other groups, and there’s a fair bit of self-referentiality. “All Fires” reuses a line Krug already sang on a Sunset Rubdown album released earlier this year and on “The Freedom” Bejar references the “city of daughters,” the name of an early Destroyer release. But, this being a group of Canadians, there’s relatively little ego; despite their varying levels of fame, everyone gets roughly equal time at the helm.

It’s just that Krug makes more with that time. “Beast Moans” uses a thick tonal palette that takes several listens to really understand. And what becomes increasingly clear over the course of those listens is the value of Krug’s contribution to that sound. It’s enough to make one yearn for the next Wolf Parade LP. Expect its release to herald the demise of NAFTA.

—Reviewer Jake G. Cohen can be reached at jgcohen@fas.harvard.edu.