Challengers
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Performer: New PornographersEdition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2007-08-21
Free Music Notes for Challengers
Free Music Review: The Pornographers slow down the pace, but stay as brilliant as ever
Hit: 5 Stars
The New Pornographers are two bands in one. On the one hand, there is the studio version of the band that includes non-touring members like the great Neko Case and Dan Bejar. Then there is the touring version of the band, that takes these amazing songs and performs them live. Both versions are centered around Carl Newman. He helps assure that the Pornographers are a great live band, even without its distinguished non-touring members, but with all members involved, this is one of the truly great studio bands in the world. CHALLENGERS is their fourth album. I honestly can't describe it as their best or their worst album. All four of their albums seem to me to be absolutely masterpieces and I was astonished to discover just how great this album has turned out to be. It isn't quite like earlier albums. For one thing, almost all the songs on CHALLENGERS are slower and statelier than almost any of the songs on previous albums. The first three cuts on the disc - "My Rights Versus Yours," "All the Old Showstoppers," and the title track represent the slowest beginning of any of their albums, but by no means are any of them weak songs. "All the Old Showstoppers" starts off almost delicately, but it gradually builds into a march as one new musical wrinkle after another is introduced to the mix. More than any other band, I would love to see these guys working on a recording. They are just dripping with talent and it would be wonderful to see who is responsible for introducing each new element. An individual song might be written initially by Newman or Bejar, but by the end of the recording process, it has been transformed into something that is obviously a group effort.
One of my fears before hearing this album (the various elements had been leaked onto the Internet over the past few months) was that Neko Case, whose solo career has been soaring, might opt out of the band. I was thrilled upon listening to this for the first time that not only has she not left the band, but contributed as much or more to this album as any other. She sings the lovely, lovely title track, which marvelously keeps the focus on her lovely voice. "Myriad Harbor" follows immediately after "Challengers," and while it doesn't frame her voice as intensely, it is still driven by her stellar singing.
While most of the songs are slower-paced compared to previous Pornographer albums, Newman's "All That Goes to Make Heaven and Earth" would be completely at home on any of the previous albums. Here it is one of the few hard driving songs. "Failsafe" slows things back down again (again focused on the singing of Neko Case).
All in all, I find this album focused a bit less on Carl Newman than previous Pornographer albums. I might have been troubled by this except all of the other members of the band seem to have stepped up to the plate. This might have been intentional. It could well be that this was more of a group effort by design. God knows that as great as Carl Newman is, this band has such a ludicrous amount of talent he could just skip the recording sessions and the rest of the band would undoubtedly produce another masterpiece. There are many collectives in rock these days, but none has the talent these guys do. And for the record, I want Carl Newman completely involved in all future recording sessions (though Carl, how about another solo album?).
I remain nervous for the future. The band's best known members all are quite successful in their own projects and with Carl Newman's moving from Vancouver to New York they are becoming more geographically dispersed. I love Neko Case. I would love to hear a new solo album by Carl Newman. And I have all of Destroyer's albums. But while I want more of each, I also want a fifth New Pornographer album. They are all great apart, but they are something truly miraculous together.
Challengers Poster
THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS return with their fourth album and their first recorded outside of bassist John Collins's basement studio. Airier, more spacious and more relaxed than its jackhammer predecessors, 'Challengers' is the sound of songwriters Carl Newman and Dan B?jar stretching out. In a recent Pitchfork interview, Newman rejected the "power-pop" label and suggested "power-folk" instead, and several songs on the new album live up to it, particularly the luscious Neko Case fronted ballads "Go Places" and "Challengers." That's not to say the band doesn't play anthems - it certainly does, but a rousing track like B?jar's "Myriad Harbour" is more imbued with the ghosts of Fred Neil and Viv Stanshall than with the new-wave songsters of yore. In general, Newman's songwriting is slightly more scrutable this time around; his lyrics still ring with wry perception and political metaphor, but betray some of the magnanimity that comes with new love - "our arms fill with miracles", he writes in "Go Places".Pop Music CDs
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