The New Pornographers, Together

I’ve been pretty awful with this blog. But May is new music month, and this meant of course, the arrival of Together, the new New Pornographers release. If you can’t tell from the title of this blog, I   am a massive NP fan. Part of the reason this band is so close to my heart is that they were really my introduction to the world of Canadian indie music, and independent music in general. Around the time that Electric Version came out, I was listening to a lot of angry, agressive music (punk, even some metal *gasp*), and a lot of really fucking sad music (Elliot Smith and The Cure anyone?). And then there was The Electric Version, and pop music suddenly started to sound really great. It was music that made me feel great, but was interesting, engaging, and clever. From that album I went on to Tigermilk…and then a whole world opened up to me.

But beyond the nostalgia factor (and god knows nostalgia is super important important to me), is that the New Pornographers, even at their lower points, continuously deliver great music. Their second last album, Twin Cinema, a masterpiece I consider to be one of the best albums of the 2000s, paired upbeat powerpop with moving mid to low tempo tracks semlessley. “The Bleeding Heart Show” proved that pop could be fundamentally moving to the soul. Challengers, the bands last release, yielded more mixed results. Unlike Twin Cinema, it felt a little disjointed at times. Strangely, it was the slow numbers on Challengers, “Entering White Cecelia”, and “Go Places,” Carl Newman’s musical proposal to his wife, which came out the strongest. The up-tempo pop songs had failed to evolve, and left the listener kind of bored.

So where does Together fit into that?

What’s most striking about Together, is that it represents quite a signficant return to the NP pre-Twin Cinema. You haven’t got a ton of particularly slow, or particularly fast songs. Instead, you’ve got a bunch of catchy, yet not quite power-pop-esque toe-tapping songs, from the triumphant “Moves” to the beautiful “Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk”. The songs on this album recalls more of Electric Version and Mass Romantic then Challengers. Does this make it better? Not necessarily. There are definitely tracks that fall short. “If You Can’t See My Mirror” (the worse of two Dan Bejar contributions), and “Valkyrie in the Roller Disco” both seem flat, possibly because they clash with the general ‘sound’ of the rest of the album. Overall as an album it’s good, it’s catchy, but it isn’t groundbreaking. When you’re known by many as a “supergroup,” expectations are, shall we say, high.

Nonetheless there are some really fabulous tracks. Above is another reminder of why Neko Case and Katherine Calder are the best parts of this band. Pair stunning vocals with great pop music, and you’ve got, well…take a listen.

Track: “Crash Years”