4/5
Together
Critical consensus be damned: 2007’s Challengers did little for me and neither did Carl Newman’s 2009 solo album Get Guilty. It seemed that one of the planet’s best pop songwriters had lost something fundamental: the genius of Newman at his best is that his songs seem immediately familiar without actually sounding like anything specific, with melodies that worm their way into one’s head. So my first response to their fifth album was one of relief. There are times when the sheer weight of talent in the NPs can get messy, but on the aptly titled Together, the band play to their considerable collective strengths.
Together has a lot that old fans will enjoy, with enough new elements to keep them interested. Many songs feature strings (opening track ‘Moves’ and the closing ‘We End Up Together’ rest on a grinding cello line, while ‘Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk’’s parlour pop rests on a deft ensemble arrangement) and ‘My Shepherd’ demonstrates that Kathryn Calder is now properly incorporated as a key element in the band’s sonic palette, rather than just acting as the spare chick voice for when Neko Case can’t tour. That said, Case is in superb form, especially on the magnificent ‘Crash Years’. It is classic NPs: three very separate sections, each catchy as hell, welded beautifully together (and bonus points, too, for the sly Smiths paraphrase in ‘honeychild, you’re not safe here’). Non-touring member Dan ‘Destroyer’ Bejar contributes his typical handful of gems in the jaunty ‘Silver Jenny Dollar’, the soul ballad ‘Daughters of Sorrow’ and – best of all – the lively ‘If You Can’t See My Mirrors’.
However, as suggested above, it’s the return of Carl Newman: Master of Pop that makes the album such a joy. ‘Your Hands (Together)’ is going to make a killer set opener, and ‘Valkyrie in the Roller Disco’ manages to take a jokey-sounding title and turn it into something genuinely moving. In a world that contains Mass Romantic and Electric Version, it’s impossible to call Together the Greatest New Pornographers Album Ever, but it’s damned close.
Andrew P Street
In stores now.
