Reviews

New Pornographers

Challengers

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Review Date: 2007-08-22

Where do you go once you're doing everything right?

The New Pornographers were good from the start, when they released the exuberant Mass Romantic as their debut. They've only honed their pop chops since then, improving with each subsequent release. Their last album, Twin Cinema, was widely hailed upon its release, as it should have been, as it was sonically surefooted and enjoyable, all at the same time.

So really, this band could have just kept going with that. Write some more ridiculously appealing pop songs, have some Canadians (and one adopted Canadian who is actually American) with impressive artistic pedigrees ("AC Newman and a group of ridiculously talented people," as their official site bills them) sing on them -- lather, rinse, repeat. And that would have been good. Great, even. It wouldn't have gotten boring for listeners, but I imagine it might have gotten a little old for the artists themselves.

So now we've got Challengers, and the New Pornographers have shifted things a bit. The sound is a bit more grown-up, a bit calmer; they've mellowed with age. The music itself brings to mind 70s AM radio at times, and has 60s pop hooks at others. It's a little more acoustic than efforts past, and its fullness is now a bit lusher. But much of it sounds fantastic, so the changes that could have been a disappointment if they were executed badly are instead refreshing.

The first single, "My Rights Versus Yours", starts things off and effectively sets the tone for the entire album. It serves as the mid-tempo; things move up and down from here, but this song is Challengers' metronome. Vocals are a highlight on this album, as they will often be for a band that contains Neko Case, but the instrumentation has grown more varied as well. "Myriad Harbour" has some cheeky back-and-forth wordplay that manages to fall just on the right side of clever. "Mutiny, I Promise You" keeps a steady pace that doesn't let the listener get bored, thoughit goes over four minutes.

But all is not perfect here. The second half of the album doesn't have the standout tracks of the first -- with the exception of "Mutiny". The rest are good, but don't really stand out among the best songs here, or other highlights of the New Pornographers catalog. Some songs get off to a strong start but fail to pay off. "Challengers" doesn't quite get where I'd like it to. The album hits a stall midway through with "Unguided", a track that's impressively epic in length but less laudable in execution.

It's hard for me to step away and be objective about the New Pornographers, as I hold a lot of affection for both its musical parts and their sum. On one hand, a lot of this album is good but just short of great, and we know this band is capable of great. It all sounds lovely, but at times the spark of their earlier work is hard to find. But I have decided to be optimistic. The New Pornographers had to shift eventually; I'll see this as their transition. It's rocky at times, but I still think they're getting somewhere good.

Score: 7.9

- Terri