first listen: new pornographers

The New Pornographers
Together
[Matador]
Release Date: 4 May 2010

Together, the fifth record from interstate pop consortium the New Pornographers, is a masterpiece of construction, each little filigree, each rush of guitar, each organ speck perfectly placed. It’s drum-tight, and as effortless in its expertise as an Olympian.

Which is another way of saying that all A.C. Newman really wants is to be our Jeff Lynne, and Together makes the strongest case in years that he’s up to the task. Waking up after the long nap that was 2007′s Challengers, Together finds Newman & Co. muscling up and catapulting hooks over the high walls of the heart with more volume and determination than ever. Challengers had a boxer on the cover — Together has one in the songs. Like Lynne, who once lamented that his paradise was fading “like the Beatles in ‘Hey Jude,’” Newman understands the world in terms of pop music, and all energies are focused toward the artful — and, at times, elaborate — construction of the same. His songs are like ships in a bottle: You stand back and admire the craftsmanship and accept the fact that you’re never going to get close to them. If there’s any emotional resonance, it’s been walled up behind obtuse phrase-turns like “Valkyrie, don’t go home/ It’s not right, leave with the lights up.” He even manages to get Neko Case and Dan Bejar, two of the most beguiling and inventive lyricists working today, to shelve their predilections and indulge in a game of hide-the-gravitas. The unexpected upside is that when the players do drop their guard, the results are genuinely startling. Hearing Case sadly refer to an ex-lover as “a tall glass of blast from the past” or lament “What’s love, but what turns up in the dark” is deep-down moving — the rare moment where the clown starts sweating off his makeup and you can see the patch of actual flesh beneath.

But let’s not get too carried away: Looking for meaning is beside the point. The playing’s the thing, and Together is crammed with masterful performances. On the whole, it’s gutsier than the group has sounded in eons, brimming with confidence and swagger. To further cement those ELO comparisons, it also finds the band betraying a greater fondness for ornate string arrangements. Most of the songs are gussied up with pirouetting violins and divebombing cellos, giving them a kind of butter cream elegance. “The Crash Years,” which takes its place near the top of the list of Best New Pornographers Songs of All Time, pits low strings against Case’s stratospheric red-orange wail, working up to a wide-open chorus. The Bejar-belted “Silver Jenny Dollar” sounds like sudden realization, its exclamation-point guitars pogo-sticking around the foreground as Bejar coos the obtuse lyric “they holler Silver Jenny Dollar” with cool detachment. “Someone Took a Bite Out of My Bed” is nothing but blazing sun, and “Daughters of Sorrow” turns Bejar and Case into a bizarro world Donny Hathaway and Roberta Flack, trading plasticine R&B verses as Kathryn Calder bongs like a bell behind them. As if the group wasn’t already star-studded, Newman has rounded out the ensemble with a supporting cast of indie rock all-stars: Okkervil River‘s Will Sheff lends vocals to the churning opener “The Moves,” Annie Clark‘s guitar chug-a-chugs on the chorus of the wistful “My Shepherd,” Zach Condon of Beirut blasts a bright trumpet on “A Bite Out of my Bed” and the Dap-Kings act as the group’s own personal JB’s throughout. Unsurprisingly, the guests never upstage — everyone here is acting in service of the song.

The record’s title may or may not be a reference to the group’s ostensibly troubled internal dynamics — the reportage of which is the kind of thing that passes for salacious gossip in indie rockdom — but it also serves as a signpost of what’s in store. The Pornographers sound more focused and unified and impenetrable than ever, and the record is a testament to the sheer brute force they’re capable of when all cylinders are firing at once. To quote Newman himself, “I must have brought the weather back with me/ soaked us till we’re see-through and dripping.”

Whatever it is that means.

— J. Edward Keyes