In May of 1986, Canada held its second world's fair: The 1986 World Exposition on Transportation and Communication, or simply, Expo 86. A small city was built on 173 acres in Vancouver, and most of it was dismantled and auctioned off after the fair. Some of the structures remain, monuments to quickly dated notions of progress and modernity. Over 22 million people attended the fair, among them, the young band mates of Canadian rock band Wolf Parade. Co-songwriters and frontmen Spencer Krug and Dan Boeckner were just wolf cubs then — nine and ten, respectively — and it would be years before any of the band members would meet. But Expo 86 was a Big Deal for them. Not so much a defining event as a collective experience, writ large, no doubt, in the golden glow of childhood memory and the washed-out blur of Kodak 110 film.

So what's this got to do with a rock record? According to Boeckner, not much. "I don't think there's any relation to the significance of the album title with the song content," he told Pitchfork in an April. But the eleven tracks on Wolf Parade's third full-length release, Expo 86 — most of which were recorded live with minimal overdubs — are noisy monuments of classic rock and disco ensconced in starkly modern arrangements.

Boeckner looks like a young Iggy Pop, has a fascination with Russia, and is the guy that usually brings the Rawk. Baby-faced Krug is a little less goth and a little more D&D — his lyrics are introspective and fantastic, with songwriting that's complimentarily moody and phantasmagoric (don't get me wrong: when Krug rocks, he rocks, but even those songs tend to be delightfully woozy). And they each have respective side projects that showcase their strengths: Krug's Sunset Rubdown and Swan Lake (with New Pornographer Dan Bejar) and Boeckner's marital collaboration, Handsome Furs. Wolf Parade, then, has always served as the place where the songwriters' distinct styles meet. Expo 86 finds the band at it's most cohesive. Though Krug and Boeckner still share creative duties, the feel is less bifurcated. Most say this is a good thing.

But I'm not Most. The band's first full-length, Apologies to the Queen Mary, knocked my socks off. And it was the very complaint of critics — the band's dual nature — that I found so compelling. Would Krug sing now, or would Boeckner? Are we going to rock out, or go on a heart-exploding rail? For me, what Wolf Parade gain in cohesion, they lose in sonic interest. To be fair, though, it could just be that the band we hear on Expo 86 is the band Wolf Parade always wanted to be, as opposed to the band I wanted them to be. (Their last release, At Mount Zoomer, saw them heading in this direction, albeit proggily.)

But let's pretend we'd never heard of Wolf Parade. From that stance, Expo 86 is a whole lot of fun. It starts like good rock records should — with the blast of "Cloud Shadow on the Mountain" (such a Krug title) and some David Byrne-esque barking from Boeckner. For a band that told Sub Pop, "No singles!" on its last album, "Palm Road" is surprisingly compact and radio-friendly. "Little Golden Age" is classic Wolf Parade, and "Ghost Pressure" finds Krug in Rapture territory. Krug's "Oh, You Old Thing" and Boeckner's Russian cosmonaut love song, "Yulia," are thoroughly enjoyable, despite the fact that they lack the exigency and ache of early Wolf Parade.

I admit I'm biased. Musically, I'm a masochist: the fastest way for a band to win my heart is to break it, and that's what Wolf Parade did with their debut five years ago. But Expo 86 is an old fashioned suitor, determined to win me over with its good hooks. In time, it probably will.