I’ll put the confession up front, which is that I loved the New Pornographers’ last album, 2005’s Twin Cinema. Loved it. It was probably my favorite album of 2005, actually, which is saying a fair amount. As such, I had high hopes for the band’s latest release, Challengers — perhaps unreasonably high hopes.
And now that the new album has dropped, it turns out it might not be a fair comparison anyway. To my ears, at least, Challengers has a lot more in common with Neko Case’s last album, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood, at least in spirit, than it does with Twin Cinema — or, to be honest, with anything else the New Pornographers have produced. Like Fox Confessor, it’s an almost introverted album, one that wears neither its heart nor its hooks on its sleeve. In fact, the moody title track, on which Neko takes lead vocals, almost sounds like a Fox Confessor outtake — although, don’t get me wrong, its quality is very high indeed.
Sonically, Challengers does have most of the expected NP trademarks — beautiful harmonies, clever drum parts, a careful, almost obsessive attention to the arrangements. It’s much less immediate, however; it’s an album that’s about texture more than anything else, and so it demands repeated listens. It’s not an album you can listen to once and really “get,” if that makes any sense.
There are a couple of songs — “Mutiny I Promise You,” and the simple (for NP) “Adventures in Solitude” — that retain some of the punchiness of the band’s previous work. They’re tucked on the back of the album, however. For the most part, even the more energetic songs, like “All the Things that Go to Make Heaven and Earth,” never really go for the throat. There’s no “Letter from an Occupant” or “Stacked Crooked” on here, nothing that you’ll come away humming.
And maybe that’s why I felt a bit let down by Challengers, despite the fact that by most measures, it’s a very good album, one that might even be bordering on great. Part of what I always loved about NP is their willingness to put gorgeous vocal lines inside their stuttering power-pop arrangements, the fact that no matter how intricate their music gets, they aren’t afraid of melody. That aspect of the band’s sound is toned so far down on Challengers that it’s almost invisible, and I miss it.
If you give Challengers a chance, give it the space to grow, unfold, and reveal its secrets, it will certainly reward you. I’m sure that I’ll play it several more times, and that I’ll continue to be impressed by the deftness and depth of NP’s execution. But I can’t help feeling that as good as it is, it could have been a little better if it had balanced that depth with a bit more directness.
Label: Matador
Release date: August 21, 2007
Rating: 8/10, at least so far.
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