Sometimes an album’s subtext merits as much attention as the music, and the journey of the band outweighs the record’s end result.

It’s virtually impossible to listen to Wilco’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” and not concentrate on the well-documented year of turmoil the band went through while recording the album. The songs on Nirvana’s “MTV Unplugged in New York” are more haunting given Kurt Cobain’s suicide less than six months after the gig.

And though Wolf Parade’s debut full-length is chalked full of passionate, quirkily aggressive rock instead of near career-ending story lines, it still possesses more water-cooler conversation starters than the typical release.

Modest Mouse front man Isaac Brock was not only responsible for getting the Montreal quartet its deal with Sub Pop, he produced the album. Which would be just harmless trivia, if the dozen tracks on “Apologies to the Queen Mary” didn’t sound so much like pre-Epic Records Modest Mouse.

But they do, as the band’s affinity for lo-fi recording, coupled with Dan Boeckner’s growl-to-wavering-howl vocals and layers of fuzzy guitars and keys play like distorted, but somehow danceable, indie rock.

While the track “Dear Songs and Daughters of Hungry Ghosts” sounds more like David Bowie than Brock, it still feels like the band let its producer live vicariously through the recording. One has to wonder how much influence Brock’s music, or presence in the studio, had during the recording process. Could this be the album Modest Mouse has been discouraged against making since signing to a major label?

Maybe so. But at least the music surfaced in some capacity, even if it is just a part of the story.