The Mohawk Lodge — Wildfires

The sophomore album from The Mohawk Lodge sees a definite shift in tempo from 2004's Rare Birds. While that album was dense with folky campfire ballads, the new face of The Mohawk Lodge bears a closer resemblance to music you'd hear on a stereo at a backyard party that gets out of control and ends with uninvited guests breaking shit. Primarily an outlet for Vancouver's Ryder Havdale, the guitarist/songwriter's sound is rounded out on this disc by more than a dozen accompanying musicians — most notably Wolf Parade's Dan Boeckner on back-up vocals. It's obvious that mental imagery is important to Havdale, as he's made every song on this record capable of evoking images of wooded areas, thanks to a heavy dose of metaphor in his lyrics. "I call timber, because everyone I know is falling," he laments on the album's standout track, "Timber." Wildfires isn't a disc that'll immediately change your life, but it's a safe bet you'll still be playing it five years from now.

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