“Hard as Nails”
from the album Inter-Be
2010
iTunes
Peter Wolf Crier is Peter Pisano and Brian Moen, a Minneapolis-based basement folk duo bred in Wisconsin. Both players have made marks on the Eau Claire scene that fostered Bon Iver’s success — Moen drumming for Amateur Love and Laarks, Pisano once the frontman for Wilco-worshipping Wars of 1812. But Inter-Be, their debut, is a record tethered to time more than geography. It’s a small collection of songs Pisano cranked out in one feverish evening and brought to Moen shortly thereafter, every hook and cranny fleshed out to sound like it’s been Skyped in from a front porch 50 years ago. The signal is clear.
M. Ward has long been a force in indie rock’s old-timey lane, and Pisano and Moen reside very much in his spirit, using what sounds to be almost exclusively vintage gear. Pisano sings in a rangy falsetto. His songwriting is ragged, understated, and striking above all else. Moen’s textural contributions are just as subtle. Though Inter-Be sounds roughly hewn at times, it’s an album woven together with great care and a sharp ear for detail. Opener “Crutch & Cane” is as airy and breathable as gym shorts, Pisano working up a nice shuffle over Moen’s locomotive drumwork. As a jumping-off point, it captures one of two moods Peter Wolf Crier maintain, the brooding, laser-focused tumbling of “Hard as Nails” its counterpoint. Toss on some headphones and you can quickly get a very good sense of how these two meet in the middle as they fingerpick over tom ripples over wily vocal harmonies. It’s not as effervescent as say, a Dodos explosion, but it’s equally haunting in it’s own quiet way.
“Down Down Down” and “Untitled 101” are two more beautiful moments, amblers gussied up with synth and saloon piano. On “Demo 01” Pisano goes even more pastoral, recalling Devendra Banhart at his most still. Where Inter-Be suffers, it’s in the limited number of gears/speeds their sound allows them — their binary nature can serve to mute a middling song (“Lion”) or highlight a bad one. The minor-chord plodding of “For Now” is one such example of the latter, its verses trying and hook invisible enough that despite Moen’s layering, it simply falls flat. It’s not a matter of being locked in; there’s just always a much more listenable, toothsome option elsewhere. Take “You’re So High,” a simple set of chords glued to a beat that just works. Though similar to a lot of the other material, it’s the album’s sturdiest, a song that finds Peter Wolf Crier at their best. Plainspoken, it is exactly how it’s presented. We need more of that.