July 31 — “Having it Out” by Peter Wolf Crier

Peter Wolf Crier

If you only listen to one song today, make it “Having it Out” by Peter Wolf Crier (2011, from the album Garden of Arms).

Peter Wolf Crier is an indie folk duo from Minneapolis who have released two albums since 2010. Their debut record Inter-Be turned a few heads and ended up at #11 on my favorite non-Canadian albums of 2010 list.

I never really gave the second record much of a chance, and it didn’t place on my 2011 year-end lists, but I’ve listened to it a few times recently, and I have to say that I was mistaken to underestimate it.

The duo of Peter Pisano and Brian Moen have drawn comparisons to Bon Iver and to The Antlers. That’s pretty good company to be in. There’s nothing very fancy about what they’re doing, even if there’s quite a bit going on in this song. On the first record, it was pretty much guitars and drums. Nothing else. Here on the new record, there’s a bit of keyboards, programming, and some other things. On today’s song, for example, there’s some keyboards, some tuned percussion, drums, and a lot of other percussion-y things. No guitars. For a few seconds in this song, and for the entirety of another song (“Never Meant to Love You”) on the album, Pisano reminds me, annoyingly, of Chris Martin from Coldplay. Thankfully, he doesn’t always sound like Martin, and Peter Wolf Crier thankfully isn’t much like Coldplay.

Instead of going on about it, I’ll just present today’s song.

There’s something really sexy about that abrupt ending. I’m not sure why, but I really love it. Although I’d be happy for the song to go on for another two minutes or so, I like the way they literally pulled the plug on it. I could listen to it all day long. In fact, I have been.

While you can download Garden of Arms from any of the legal downloading places, you should buy a physical copy instead. The best place to do that would be a Mom and Pop bricks-and-mortar record shop. The second best thing is to order it from the band’s online store here.