I’ve been buying a lot of new
music lately, and this next album was one of them. Despite it being new, it was
randomly rolled. Because I’d only listened to it once through when I rolled it,
this review was a bit delayed, since I wanted to give it a proper chance to
settle into my ears. Three more listens later, I think I’m there.
Disc 648 is….Together
Artist: The New
Pornographers
Year of Release: 2010
What’s up with the Cover? Miniatures! Careful
readers of this blog will know I have a penchant for modeling myself. This
cover is pretty cool overall, and catches a vibe of both separation and
community that the record also reflects. That said, these figurines need better
paint jobs. I suppose that’s the effect they were going for, but I would add a
little highlighting and shading if it were up to me.
How I Came To Know It: In the last two years I have
become a sudden but fervent fan of Neko Case’s solo work. Once I had mined that
to exhaustion, I started looking at her other projects and the logical place to
start was the New Pornographers.
I read
an article about 2007’s “Challengers” and bought it and loved it, so it was a
question of how far down the rabbit hole I wanted to go. I let Youtube decide
me, and I listened to every album they had put out song by song to see what I
thought. I didn’t care for their first three albums (“Mass Romantic”, “Electric
Version” and “Twin Cinema”) at all, despite the rave reviews they received. I
was about to give up hope when I heard “Together.” It is no “Challengers” but
it was certainly good enough to buy. And so I did.
How It Stacks Up: I have two New Pornographers albums. They have six
albums, but pending a listen to the 2014 release “Brill Bruisers” I am good
with the two I have. Of those two, “Together” is second, but having listened to
their first three albums as well, I’m comfortable saying it is my second
favourite overall as well.
Rating: 3 stars but almost 4
“Together” is an apt title for a
record that fuses this many different sounds and notions into each song. Most
of the time it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but I generally appreciated the
effort throughout.
The band itself is an amalgam of
eight different musicians that lend their talents to both the New Pornographers
and a variety of solo projects and other bands. This can sometimes be a hot
mess (my one and only experiment with Broken Social Scene was an example of
this) and I was a bit nervous about the NP after so many failed attempts to
like them (see “How I Came to Know It” above).
Fortunately, “Together” sticks
mostly to the approach followed on their previous masterpiece, “Challenger”
letting the melodies shine through and keeping all the various contributions to
the sound complementary, yet distinct. In short, they keep it together.
I particularly like how they work
in the horn and string sections, using little flourishes here and there to
punctuate a song emotionally without overwhelming it. On “Crash Years” they
even work in some whimsical whistling. At times there can be too many little
riffs competing with one another in a single song, but for the most part they
hold the curse of the song through choppy waters of their own making.
And on the horn front, full credit
for employing the Dap-Kings. These guys can really play, and their soul revival
feel infuses the indie constructions with a vitality they might not have
managed on their own.
This record is solidly in the
modern indie movement, and it suffers from a lot of the common malaises that
strike that style. Most notably, lyrics tend to paint small distinct scenes, which prevent a narrative quality I tend to like in a song.
Neko Case is the star of the show, even though she willingly takes a back
seat in favour of the collaborative feel of the record. While the production and song construction don’t
give these songs the same emotional impact as her solo work, Case still elevates
“Together” whenever she gets the chance. “My
Shepherd” soars under her vocal leadership and no matter how much of her I
get, I always find myself wanting more.
Unfortunately the majority of the
vocal leads go to Dan Bejar. Bejar is the Blake Sennett to Neko Case’s Jenny
Lewis. Fortunately Bejar’s voice is much better than Sennett’s in Rilo Kiley, the
latter of whom often finds me skipping to the next track on casual listens.
Despite generally liking Bejar’s voice, and how it holds loose and pretty
harmonies with Case, it still suffers from a common indie malaise: ironic
detachment. Ironic detachment may be the sound of our times, but that doesn’t
mean I have to love it.
The album feels heavily influenced
by Belle and Sebastian in places, particularly on “If You Can’t See My Mirrors” featuring lines like “pissed up Sunday morning” which seemed a bit too British Isles for the
Vancouver based New Pornographers. Much worse is the song's reference to “Honourable discharge abord the HMS Pinafore”
which made me see the song through the lens of a musical.
I can’t stand the cutesy quality
in most musicals, and just referencing HMS Pinafore made me start hearing that
quality in a bunch of the other songs, with their light and bouncy style.
Fortunately the general excellence of the record dispelled the bad taste by the
time I reached the end.
The record has great songs throughout
and they often flow together so seamlessly that I can’t remember at the end of
listening which is which. This could be a function of me only having four total
listens to the record, but even if the feeling persists, it isn’t a bad thing.
The same thing happens on Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” which is, you
know, pretty good.
Lyrically, my favourite song is “Valkyrie in the Roller Disco” which had
me remembering what it was like to be young and filled with vain hope of love
at a teen skate (ice, mind you), enthralled with all the girls that in those
days were a foot taller than me. Never have I wanted to die in battle more. “Valkyrie don’t go home” indeed.
Ahem. Back to the record, which ties
all its themes together in a nice bow for the final song, “We End Up Together.” This song pulls together a lot of different
sounds, most notably a delightful little cello flourish and some back and forth
min-choruses. Each element on its own would sound clunky or unfinished. Combined
they are a complex layering of sounds that creates a symphony of small. With so
much going on as the song (and the record) heads into the final turn you are
certain the whole thing is going to hits a wall of production and wash out.
Instead, as promised, it ends up together.
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