Home > Music > CD Review > The New Pornographers, "Challengers"

The New Pornographers, "Challengers"

The keyboards go silent (it’s okay, really) on the Canadian band’s latest gem

By Matt Rodbard, Metromix

August 21, 2007

Critic's Rating:

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Backstory: A couple years back, frontman Carl “A.C.” Newman moved to Brooklyn from his native Vancouver and recorded most of this album at a Park Slope studio. Longtime collaborator Dan Bejar dropped by for chunks of time to hammer out tunes and eat really good thin crust pizza. Though alt-country bombshell Neko Case still sings on the album, Newman made an effort to include his niece (and touring Case fill-in) Kathryn Calder on the album—she sings lead on the tremolo-driven song “Failsafe.”

Why you should care: With the mature, genre-stretching “Challengers,” the New Pornographers is anything but the indie pop supergroup you spazz danced to a few years ago. “Unguided” is a gorgeously arranged epic, with strings, a Nashville-tuned acoustic guitar and flutes leaking in at the sixth minute (paging Jethro Tull). The Neko Case-lead “Go Places” is a tender love song, straightforward and knee-buckling. “Mutiny, I Promise You” is the best compromise between the band’s old and new sounds, with an organ hook (old school), off-kilter time signatures (new school), a slow, sweeping bridge (new school) and Case/Newman harmonies (both schools, thankfully).

Verdict: The band’s best album to date. Carl Newman flips the script record-to-record, which makes us pretty damn excited about his anticipated ’08 solo album. Plus, the electro-pop sugar cube album is pretty played out—just ask Hot Hot Heat.

X-Factor: The Canadian government subsidizes the band’s touring and recording expenses—and Newman doesn’t even live there. Looks like somebody has a fan in Ottawa.