No matter how enduring the art though, time persists as a great equalizer. Over the ensuing decades, Krug has continued his craft in several directions — his own project, Sunset Rubdown, hit several creative peaks across the 2000s, as did the supergroup Swan Lake that he shared with members of the New Pornographers and Destroyer. His solo work never abated either, as he made the graceful transition from young fiery hopeful to esteemed statesman.

And so, in this current age, Krug sat down to do what felt most natural, which was make a record about himself as he is now: an ageing icon, a father and husband, a persisting talent, a mortal man, warts and all. This humane and infinitely relatable subject matter is woven into Same Fangs to a sometimes aching degree. Though to hear Krug tell it, this detailed reconciliation of time and history wasn’t exactly on his mind when he first began composing the album back in 2024.

“As I was writing those songs, I don’t know if I was consciously re-prioritizing anything. But in retrospect, there is a lot of material here, of me coming to grips with a new reality — the joys and hardships of parenthood, settling down in life. I own a house now! Not something I ever thought I would do,” he says, while taking a walk in his current neighbourhood, about an hour north of Victoria, on Vancouver Island.

Shifting priorities and focus aside, one thing that remains unchanged is Krug’s writing chops. He was always superbly adept at integrating complex feelings of love and loss into strange, beautifully erratic songs. There’s good reason why both Sunset Rubdown and Wolf Parade in particular remain such beloved staples of Canadian indie.

And while Dan Boeckner wrote the band’s runaway anthems — vast-sounding songs that snared vast feelings — it was Krug who often led Wolf Parade’s most intricate, quirky and micro-emoted pieces. If Boeckner’s output was meant to shatter you from the outside in, Krug always had a golden touch for writing music that tore at and scoured you from the inside out, needling at your very soul.

On Same Fangs, much of the instrumental bluster of his past projects is stripped back, with just an acoustic piano to guide the way. Left alone with his instrument, and unencumbered by ideas of past glories and reputations, Krug ends up producing some of the most heart-rending and deeply felt music of his long and storied career.

“I always return to the piano. It was my first instrument as a kid. This idea of making a song with just an acoustic piano and voice — what kind of music you can make when the electricity cuts out — has always been an interesting notion to me,” he explains.

Krug does bring in some collaborators to imbue the album with subtle measures of percussion, strings and other artful touches. Russian violinist and violist Maria Grigoryeva lends pastoral grace to a few numbers on Same Fangs. And one of the key partners in crime Krug brings in for the album is Elbow Kiss, the stage name of Victoria singer-songwriter Em Boreen. Their ethereal and moody vocals mix with Krug’s in all sorts of perfect ways, and they figure heavily throughout the record, particularly on the breathtaking duet “Pinecone King.”

All that said, Krug was very conscious about keeping the add-ons and frills as minimal as possible in order not to overcrowd these songs — to preserve them in that spare, skeletal and vulnerable state. “There’s still a lot of space there. I wanted to keep it sparse and open, and not to smother the piano arrangements,” he adds.