new New Pornographers

The tom work in "Your Hands (Together)" enacts in me automatic responses. I am just suddenly playing air drums, world be damned.

I love "All the Old Showstoppers," personally. I love the idea of being a theatrical troupe -- like a broadway show, or more tapping into like this Annie Get Your Gun'esque Wild West / Buffalo Bill theatricality where they trot out the old showstoppers, and even today, you can be a band with the big numbers (esp with New Pornographers who have a def, recognizable almost mythological sound) and begin playing the old familiar chords and your audience is there to be blown away, and as the audience "you are nothing if not home." But see, Gaslight Anthem's "Stay Lucky" too for an example of how much of a sucker I am for bands mythologizing their force and institutions.

Not sure how much of this one I'm sold on yet, but this thread has made me go back and reconsider both Challengers (vv underrated) and Twin Cinema (a couple of towering tracks and a couple of good ones but a fair amount of relative meh).

Also rediscovering Bejar's "gift" for supremely irritating melodies. This fuckin' guy. I'd rate Challengers at least equal to Twin Cinema if they'd remove "Myriad Harbour"...

Christ, man, "Myriad Harbor" is the best song on Challengers.

But I guess it's okay if you think the opposite! I don't know, I have trouble understanding Bejar-hate.

Dan Bejar plays the Davy Jones role in a New Pornographers/Monkees comparison. He even kind of sounds like him at times. But anyway, Davy was probably the most divisive Monkee like Bejar is the most divisive 'Nog.

I halfway understand why people like Dan Bejar and his songs, but I'll never cross over to that camp willingly.

I've never disliked a Bejar penned NP song, even tho I have no interest in Destroyer.

Tho maybe I should check out a Destroyer track or two. Now that I think about it, I don't know if I've ever actually heard Destroyer.

Thus we see the diminishing returns of power-pop. I don't how different you guys expect a NP album to be. All power-pop gets tiresome when it doesn't slow down and congeal (no snark intended).

I figured that NP were one of the few bands who could break that stigma. It should have gotten tiresome after the first three albums but it didn't -- those albums sounded exactly the same but it was just more and more of a really good thing. That's not to say that I didn't like "Challengers". I haven't heard the new one yet.

Bejar's "gift" for supremely irritating melodies

With supremely irritating vocals to match.

I don't know, I have trouble understanding Bejar-hate

It's mostly in good fun. It wouldn't be NPs without him. But I really do find "Myriad Harbour" excruciating.

myriad harbor is great--entering white cecelia is the bejar dud on challengers.

fwiw i think adventures in solitude is a miss from an arrangement perspective but beyond that minor ish bill h. basically otm

Am convinced that Bejar is the least! convincing! vocalist! evah! and very strongly feel that he's phoning it in on Together; after only a couple spins I can't listen to even a few bars of any of his songs on this album. His hooks are like he's trying to be the Gaslight Anthem or something... on the other hand when he's being as genuinely himself (i.e. archly arty) as he ever gets on Newps albums, I don't hate the result. "Myriad Harbour" is one of the best tracks on Challengers and things like "Jackie Dressed in Cobras" provided a good foil for Newman's huge hooky numbers. Here I feel like every time he shows up he's like the guy who bluffs his way into the room at a party, takes over the conversation, makes unwarranted belligerent/asinine statements, then leaves to send another roomful of people into a bummer tailspin.

I love what they're doing with the Case/Calder backing vocals on this album. It sounds like they're using some of the techniques the Dirty Projectors lean on with the female vox and putting them into the service of pop. Kurt Dahle on drums makes such a difference to the energy, too - I feel like that's part of what was missing from Get Guilty.

you feel that way about bejar's if you can't see my mirrors? because it seems to me that song uses the case/calder backing vocals to their best effect -- and that's something i wouldn't normally assume would be the case with a bejar song (tho the vocals between him and case on twin cinema's streets of fire were lovely).

I like all of Bejar's songs on the new one.

Also, I agree w/ the contention that "Adeventures In Solitude" is one of their greats.

yeah, i think bejar hit his stride (in terms of how he fits best with the band) on together.

Uh oh. I like Destroyer's Rubies.

it has kind of an updated bowie-vibe to it, i think. lots of open space, guitar that chime in and out and play space-y lines, and drums that seem like they are tumbling downhill.

great, self-aware, playful, wry lyrics; great summer vibe.

anyway, yeah, i love rubies.

The new NP is not really growing on me, unfortunately.

cast this record into the trash bin, trust me i had my reasons

Is any Canadian album in 2010 safe from ksh's trashbin????

haven't heard this yet, save maybe one song, but i do love Destroyer (at least his last two albums, which are the only ones I've really heard)

cast this record into the trash bin, trust me i had my reasons

I TRUST YOU HAD YOUR REASONS BUT WHY, KSH, WHY?

hahahaha

i have not heard it! i have not bought it! i was merely alluding to the first lines of Destroyer's Rubies!

btw wherever I shake out on this thing (at worst, it's merely another awesome NPs record), let me just go on the record that "Your Hands (Together)" is dope as fuck. love the hypercompressed string noise "solo"

on further reflection he may just be playing behind the bridge. still sounds great though.

i listened to this album on a two-hour plane flight today. the middle and end sections really sounded outstanding. it's funny, because i started by listening to the new disc from the nat'l, and from track nos. 1 -- 6, i thought "wow, i never cared about this band before, but this may be the best thing i've heard this year." then i hit track no. 7, and the album hit a wall for me. by contrast, i began in the middle of together -- maybe at sweet talk, sweet talk -- and concentrated on it through the end (we end up together) and was floored by how well the building orchestration worked, and how the case/calder harmonies gave me chills, and how different and interesting each song was from the next.

Kathryn has a new album imminent for release. This song is intriguing: http://stereogum.com/385921/kathryn-calder-slip-away/mp3s/

The iTunes Bonus Tracks for "Together" make up an EP of three Outrageous Cherry covers, and they are AWESOME!

oh nice. got a 7" of that when i bought the album but have not yet listened.

Just got back from their show. First half was excellent, everyone in fine form and jeez, Blaine's lost weight and I swear I saw him smile a few times! However, 2nd half was bogged by too many late-period Newman trudgers and (predictably) Bejar, who seriously looked like a homeless person who'd accidentally wandered onto stage.

oh no, a homeless person

Saw the show last night in Columbus, OH. Had a funny moment at the beginning: Before taking the stage, the band was letting Boston's "Foreplay" play over a dark stage. After about a minute, the iPhone email notification sound went off, to great laughter. (Neko said it was her mom emailing her before the show.) Opened with "Sing Me Spanish Techno" and did something from every album, including I think 4 from the new one. Dan came on and off stage as needed throughout the show, and towards the end had to be prompted the lyrics for "Jackie" by Kurt, because Dan was clearly plastered. Lots of energy, set list was almost like a greatest hits with a few oddities interspersed.

Similar show in Milwaukee, a few nights ago. Bejar also drunk as a skunk for "Jackie," and pretty much bleated the lyrics at an absurd volume. Saw plenty of attendees on the older end of the spectrum covering their ears and looking stunned. I felt their pain. The band played plenty from Together, though--"Moves," "Crash Years," "Your Hands (Together)," "Silver Jenny Dollar," "My Shepherd," "Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk," and "Up in the Dark."

I'm seeing them on Saturday at Terminal 5. I hate the venue, but a lot of good bands play there unfortunately. Do they play some songs from Twin Cinema? That's my favorite of theirs.

They played "Sing Me Spanish Techno," "These Are The Fables," "Twin Cinema," "Use It" and "The Bleeding Heart Show" last night.

That's awesome, I love those songs. Hope they play "Streets of Fire."

I was hoping for a few more from "Challengers," but we got "Your Rights Vs Mine," "Myriad Harbour" and the title track. Two from Electric Version ("The Law Has Changed" and "A Testament To Youth In Verse") and three from Mass Romantic (title track, "Jackie" and "The Slow Descent Into Alcoholism").

Is there some reason Dan Bejar acts like a sulky seven-year-old on stage or is it just part of the ambience?

yeah, it's called stage fright

I saw them tonight at the Shepherds Bush Empire (I think it was a one-off show warm up for their ATP performance tomorrow?). Neko Case was with them this time (Carl said she'd never sung with them in the UK before). Similar set-list to the ones mentioned above from a few months ago, give or take a couple of songs - they didn't play "Letter from an Occupant," but they did play that "Snow White" song from the 'Dark Was the Night' comp. They started with lots of fast classics and then got into a large chunk of midtempo ones. Carl apologized at the end saying they had at least 5 more in them but the curfew was cutting them off.

The crowd was dead, dead, dead... hardly any movement at all. The balcony was open but the place seemed less than 2/3rds full. Strangely (to me), people seemed to respond most enthusiastically to the "Together" songs. The stage is frustratingly low in that place. The drummer is still a monster! They are so much fun to see live.

"Hey, Snow White" is a Destroyer song, but I'm guessing Bejar wasn't there to participate. Sounds good, though.

Huh, I didn't know that. Carl Newman and Neko sing it on the 'Dark Was the Night' comp.
Bejar was indeed absent. Newman offered some faux-angry banter, saying 'that guy's a prick' when someone shouted a question about him.
I think the only Bejar song they played was "Testament to Youth in Verse."

I think the setlist was something like this:

Moves
The Slow Descent Into Alcoholism
It's Only Divine Right
The Laws Have Changed
We End Up Together
All the Old Showstoppers
Adventures in Solitude
These Are the Fables
Twin Cinema
Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk
Crash Years
Hey, Snow White
Your Hands (Together)
Up in the Dark
My Rights Versus Yours
Mass Romantic
Testament to Youth in Verse
Use It
The Bleeding Heart Show

Encore:
Challengers
Sing Me Spanish Techno

I have some of that out of order but I think that's the bulk of it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYyu5vbwvbA&feature=youtu.be

lol, love it

Seems unlikely that the Newps will ever release another album. Is there any interest in a Tracks poll? ILM's chance to set their canon in stone.

why unlikely?

i think there's a new album coming out in 2014

Ah, so it seems: http://thefourohfive.com/news/article/the-new-pornographers-have-almost-finished-their-sixth-studio-album