New Pornographers

For anyone who has followed the New Pornographers since their early days at the dawn of the 2000s—becoming forever spellbound by that treasure chest of pop‑rock wonders that was “Twin Cinema” — approaching a new album by the Vancouver collective means reliving, each time, a kind of anticipation typical of those in love, finding oneself wondering: will the listening experience still be dotted with those fleeting instants that make the chest jolt? Will the balance once again be preserved between the sweetness of surrendering to familiar embraces and the thrill of surprises that send the heart racing and take your breath away?

Facing these expectations without too much naïveté probably requires taking a step back and examining the situation with a cool head. The project founded by the fifty‑eight‑year‑old singer and guitarist Carl Newman (aka A. C. Newman) has now been active for more than a quarter of a century. The explosive kaleidoscope of the early‑millennium Canadian scene has long since entered the history books, and is therefore fertile ground for nostalgia. The machine once capable of tirelessly producing concise power pop contraptions—sitting at the crossroads between crunchy Bowie‑esque glam and choral propulsion, with virtually inexhaustible arranging imagination—has for some time now lost a few important parts along the way (see under: Destroyer), although Neko Case remains part of the group, contributing to those male‑female vocal interweavings, supported as well by keyboardist Kathryn Calder, so essential to the New Pornographers’ songwriting economy. The previous album “Continue As A Guest” had already shown, in several places, a retreat from the guitar exuberance of earlier works toward a more reflective, almost singer‑songwriter vein, with keyboards taking on an increasingly prominent role within the band’s still‑rich sonic palette.

“Great Princess Story” begins, and the two‑sided soul of “The Former Site Of” becomes instantly clear: the U2‑like guitar delay and the discreet but insistent sequencer providing rhythmic momentum suggest potential epic surges—perhaps triggered by Arcade Fire‑style pounding after the first chorus—yet the vocals trace subdued lines, whose peaks of emotion reveal more melancholy tenderness than breathless enthusiasm.

The flashes of melodic brilliance the New Pornographers have accustomed us to still glimmer, but this time they seem scattered across wide American prairies, in a weary gallop chasing ghostly riders bearing the features of Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty. Hence the slide guitars and synthetic brass appearing in “Ballad of the Last Payphone”; the synth‑folk interludes—War on Drugs‑like scraps—of “Wish You Could See Me I’m Killing It” and “Wine Remembers the Water”; the almost soft‑rock inflections of “Calligraphy.” One is reminded of the baroque power-pop/country rock intersections of Wilco’s “Summerteeth”, though in a more muted, less kaleidoscopic key.

In a tradition inaugurated with “In the Morse Code of Brake Lights”, the songs’ architecture was born in Newman’s personal studio before the rest of the band contributed their parts. For the first time, no song features Neko Case singing lead on her own. For the first time, a session musician—albeit a high‑profile one, Charley Drayton—handles the drum parts, re‑recorded after the arrest and subsequent expulsion of Joe Seiders, with the band since 2014, accused of possessing child pornography. Amid drifting ships, tributes to the last payphones still in circulation, and cocktails with friends suffering from terminal cancer, the lyrics—always witty and imbued with a gentle irony—reflect a disenchanted and slightly bitter state of mind. It’s hard not to think, among the numerous metaphors, of a coded meditation on the shipwreck of the North American continent in this historical moment.

And what of the jolts we expected? The post‑punk verve of “Votive,” with its new wave guitar assault—both bewildering and effective—stands somewhat on its own. But there are the bubbling synths of the Cars‑style mid‑tempo “Pure Sticker Shock”; the harmonic shift in “Spooky Action,” which after two and a half minutes wakes us from the illusion of listening to the new Fleetwood Mac and gently hurls us into the solar system; the fusion of intimacy and synth anthems—almost Grandaddy‑like—in the touching “Bonus Mai Tais,” graced with one of the album’s most piercing poetic images: “the sidereal doo‑wop of rain/on the skylight, yeah, it played.”

“The Former Site Of” ends with its six‑and‑a‑half‑minute title track. Its opening of electronic keyboards and apocalyptic lullaby is a Sufjan‑Stevens‑esque mirage; from the rooftop of a church we witness the progressive crumbling of everyday life as we’ve known it; the tape rewinds with nods to earlier lyrics, including the ship lost among the waves we first glimpsed in “Great Princess Story.” Then a climax of distortion and horns abandons us in the middle of a heartland that seems to have misplaced its heart. The New Pornographers’ class remains intact—it is the times that have changed—and now, Mr. Tambourine, it’s time to put your shirt back on. Newman and his companions understand this all too well, and simply take responsibility for it.

10/04/2026