(photo: Jody Rogac)

The term “supergroup” seems a bit tired and dated in 2009.  Spencer Krug would agree with me, I think, as would his fellow Wolf Parader, Dan Boeckner, as both of them have alternate projects besides just Wolf Parade, and they don’t necessarily refer to Wolf Parade as their “main band”  They take time off between album/tour cycles, as do most bands, and in that time off they work on other material.  Nothing super or magical about it.

What is amazingly super about this kind of arrangement is that great songwriters like Krug, Dan Bejar (Destroyer, New Pornographers, Hello Blue Roses) and Carey Mercer (Frog Eyes, and Blackout Beach) have the opportunity to churn out great material in a new incarnation while their other bands are on a break.  If you’re not familiar with Krug, Bejar, and Mercer’s alternate project, Swan Lake, but are fans of their work in various splinter bands, then you’d be doing yourself a huge favour checking out their second album, Enemy Mine, released this week.  Swan Lake create layered, genre-bending songs that can baffle, boggle, and blow you away all at the same time.  The diversity of songwriting styles lends their work a cut and paste quality in the very best sense; no two songs are ever going to sound the same when three songwriters are working together on one album.  This time out, the band has said that they deliberately set out to work in a collaborative manner, as noticed on the haunting “Ballad of a Swan Lake, Or, Daniel’s Song” where Bejar sings the first half, and then both Krug and Mercer carry it to the end by doing a shout-out-loud layered duet.  I didn’t really get into their first album, Beast Moans, but this dark, moody and intense record feels like the perfect antidote to some of the more sterile and sound-a-like bands that have been cropping up lately.

If you like your Destroyer slightly damaged, and your Wolf Parade lean and hungry, and your Frog Eyes, er, froggy, then you’ll dig the graceful, disjointed Enemy Mine.  It’s out now on Jagjaguwar.

MP3: Swan Lake “Spanish Gold, 2044″
MP3: Swan Lake “Spider”
Myspace: Swan Lake
Buy: Swan Lake Enemy Mine