Review by Stephen Thomas Erlewine
There never has been much of a question that the New Pornographers are a cerebral power pop band -- A.C. Newman's songs dance around meaning and Dan Bejar deliberately turns meaning inside out -- but they always hit the gut instead of the head due to their propulsive melodies and sweetly muscular guitars. Such was the case up through 2005's Twin Cinema, anyway, but on their fourth album, 2007's Challengers, they turn inward, tempering their hooks and muting their colors, winding up with an album that emphasizes their admirable qualities first, with their endearing ones revealing themselves only after repeated plays. It's true that the New Pornographers' albums have always been growers, records that unveiled their gifts over time, but Challengers is their biggest grower yet, a dense collection of carefully constructed and brain-power pop where even the liveliest song, "All the Things That Go to Make Heaven and Earth," is a tense, nervous cacophony of ideas and riffs that doesn't grab hold -- it plants a seed that later blooms. Few of the other songs here are as fast or jumbled as that -- it's every bit the early Roxy Music salute Newman claims it is -- as the rest of the album dwells over slower, softer territory, or precisely written pop tunes where no left turn goes unexplored.
At least that's true of Newman's tunes, and he once again dominates the album, writing nine out of the 12 tracks. Newman has a knack for writing segments that are bright, hooky, and seemingly indelible, possessing the blinding rush of the best power pop, but when he's writing for this band, he assembles these colorful shards of melody in challenging ways, creating intricate mosaics where the melodies never quite lead exactly where they seem they would. Although the New Pornographers play these songs with an unassuming directness, Newman's pop requires active listening, especially here on Challengers, as it's built upon carefully arranged and quietly performed songs. Bejar balances these precious tendencies of Newman by indulging in his eccentricities. His songs aren't as detailed in their arrangements, but this only accentuates his oddness, where he can make either the slow, spooky crawl of "Myriad Harbour" or the delicate Brit-pop stomp of "Entering White Cecilia" seem equally off balance. As always, this does make for a good contrast to the essential sweetness of Newman's melodies (perhaps best heard on the openers, "My Rights Versus Yours" and "All the Old Showstoppers," the gateway drugs for the rest of the album), but it often seems as if Newman knows that he has a gift for these sweet melodies, so he undercuts that gift by having his melodies follow unconventional paths, and by having his lyrical meaning so well hidden that it often seems not worth the bother to analyze. So, this is internal music, best suited for solitary listening, but the odd thing about Challengers is that it has the inherent tension and messiness of a band, where harmonies float in and out and the group rides a natural rhythm instead of a click track. And that, more so than the seesaw between Newman and Bejar's songs, is the true balance of the New Pornographers, because both writers benefit from having a band that plays like a band: while you may not be able to decipher these writers immediately, they sell their eccentricities as something that's quintessentially, endearingly human, and that talent proves invaluable on a record as subtle, yet rewarding, as Challengers.
The New Pornographers
Challengers
[Matador; 2007]
Rating: 6.0
In interviews, the New Pornographers have made known that they don't want to be called a supergroup. Sorry, bros, no dice. Putting aside that "supergroup" is a much easier term than "band made up of people from other notable bands," it also has certain connotations about the way a band operates that fits the New Porns snugly, from how they tour in various iterations depending on the schedules of the primary figures to how the albums have allotted space for each songwriter or singer (i.e. the Bejar-Triad Rule). Whether due to evil, lazy media folk like me or their own early press kits, the New Pornographers will never be seen as just a regular group, especially as the profile of Neko Case, Destroyer, and Carl Newman grows concurrent with the band's success.
But maybe the reluctance to accept the term is wise; after all, supergroups aren't known for their longevity. That's especially been a worry for the New Pornographers, whose first record, Mass Romantic, sounded like the giddy, breathless product of a few collaborative weekends snuck between other commitments, a brilliantly spontaneous all-star one-off. Those kinds of records are the hardest to replicate, and the band struggled to find its legs through the inconsistent and tentative Electric Version. It took 2005's Twin Cinema to confirm them as more than a side project, in part by successfully establishing a group identity beyond the three stars-- Kurt Dahle's drumming was as crucial as any vocal turn on the record.
You'd expect Challengers to build on that momentum, as the New Pornographers get used to touring without Case or Bejar and members like Dahle and Kathryn Calder continue to step up their game. But at the same time, the increasing "guest-star" status of Case/Bejar has made the Pornographers even more firmly Newman's show to run. Of course, Newman's always had his hands on the steering wheel, but Challengers asserts his dominance; with its mellow mood and baritone guitar obsession, it's more a sequel to his solo record The Slow Wonder than Twin Cinema.
That's not entirely a bad thing, as The Slow Wonder is like the great lost New Pornographers record. But the determination of Challengers to sound mature and not get too crazy is frustrating in the context of the Pornographers catalog. With its string sections and French horns and four different vocalists, it's on a larger scope than the intimate Wonder, and thus is less pleasant evening pop than widescreen midtempo power ballad territory. The Pornographers have dallied with this sound-- "The Bones of an Idol," for instance-- but only as contrast betwixt the power-pop sugar-highs. Now those up-beat moments are themselves the contrast, rather than the focus, and Challengers sags because of it.
Those first three songs set this agenda: "My Rights Versus Yours" resembling a Slow Wonder outtake with its chugging Pet Sounds baritone foundation and awkward refrain, the repetitive, teasingly flat "All the Old Showstoppers", and the title track, which squanders Case's pipes on a meandering ballad with no peaks. Even Bejar appears to have gotten the memo, as his "Myriad Harbour" contains plenty of characteristic vocal jokes-- intrusive, impatient backing singers, lyrics directed at fellow Pornographers-- but doesn't even touch the sprawl of his anthemic Rubies work.
Finally, 15 minutes in, the Pornographers deign to give us the throwback of "All of the Things that Go to Make Heaven and Earth", the first spike of genuine pop enthusiasm to cut through the ruminative fog. Yet it's only a brief flash, its energy quickly absorbed by Calder's uninspiring vocal debut "Failsafe," and the lumbering six-and-a-half minutes of "Unguided," as schmaltzy as the usually nonsensical Newman has ever gotten. Sadly, the album never recovers: there's another Neko-wasting tune ("Go Places"), two forgettable Bejar C-sides, and only one more track that attempts to recapture the old pep ("Mutiny, I Promise You").
But the problem isn't so much the pace of the record as the topography; Twin Cinema ballads like "Bleeding Heart Show" and "These Are the Fables" built to euphoric payoffs, while Challengers tracks end with uncharacteristic whimpers instead of bangs. Newman, as the undisputed leader at this point, has to take most of the blame, but it's possible to cite the other primaries as well, as Neko and Bejar show up just to go through the motions. Perhaps it's just impossible for a supergroup-- sorry, band made up of people in other notable bands-- to properly mature, but Challengers is the first to suggest that the spark of creative collaboration may be gone from the New Pornographers, and that settling into being just a regular band is more challenging than they might have thought.
-Rob Mitchum, August 20, 2007
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