NEW PORNOGRAPHERS - The Former Site Of

For anyone who has followed the New Pornographers since their debut at the dawn of the 2000s, forever struck by that treasure chest of pop-rock wonders that was “Twin Cinema”, approaching a new album by the Vancouver outfit always means reliving the jittery anticipation of someone in love, and finding yourself wondering: will this listen still be dotted with those fleeting moments that make your chest leap? Will it once again strike that balance between the sweetness of surrendering to familiar embraces and the vertigo of surprises that send your heart into your throat and take your breath away?

Confronting these expectations without being too naive probably calls for a step back and a cool-headed look at the situation. The project founded by 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 Canadian scene of the early 2000s (see the entry Q in this alphabet) now belongs to history, and is therefore ripe material for nostalgia. The machine capable of tirelessly and inventively churning out compact power pop contraptions, at the crossroads between crisp glam à la Bowie and choral drive, with a virtually inexhaustible flair for arrangement, has long since lost some important pieces along the way (Destroyer in particular), although Neko Case remains part of the group and still contributes to those male-female vocal interplays – also bolstered by keyboardist Kathryn Calder – that have always been so essential to how New Pornographers songs work.

The previous album, “Continue As A Guest”, already showed in several places a retreat from the guitar exuberance of earlier records toward a more reflective, almost singer-songwriter vein, with keyboards weighing ever more heavily within an – albeit still rich – sonic palette.  

It opens with “Great Princess Story”, and the two-faced soul of “The Former Site Of” becomes clear right away: the U2-esque guitar delay and the discreet yet insistent sequencer driving the rhythm suggest potential epic surges, perhaps sparked by an Arcade Fire-style drum onslaught unleashed after the first chorus: but the vocal melody traces understated lines, whose emotional peaks carry more melancholic tenderness than breathless enthusiasm.

The sparks of melodic flashes we've come to expect from New Pornographers still flicker here and there, but this time they seem scattered across wide American prairies, in a weary gallop chasing ghost riders resembling Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty. Hence the slide guitars and synthetic horns that pop up in “Ballad Of The Last Payphone”; the synth-folk interludes, like War On Drugs offcuts, in “Wish You Could See Me I'm Killing It” and “Wine Remembers The Water”; even the soft-rock fragrances of “Calligraphy”. It brings to mind the baroque-power pop/country rock intersections of Wilco's “Summerteeth”, but in a minor key, less colorful.

In a tradition inaugurated by “In The Morse Code Of Brake Lights”, the songs' architecture was born in Newman's home studio, before the rest of the band added their contributions. For the first time, no song features Neko Case singing lead on her own. For the first time, a session musician, however top-notch (Charley Drayton), handles the drum parts, re-recorded after the arrest and subsequent expulsion from the band of Joe Seiders – with the group since 2014 – accused of possessing child pornography material.

Amid drifting ships, tributes to the last public payphones still in service, cocktails with friends battling terminal cancer, the lyrics – still witty and blessed with a light irony – reflect a disenchanted, somewhat bitter state of mind. Among the many metaphors, it's hard not to read an encoded reflection on the shipwreck of the North American continent at this point in history.  

And what about the jolts we were expecting? The post-punk verve of “Votive”, with a burst of new wave guitars as jarring as it is effective, stands somewhat apart. But there are the bubbling synths of the Cars-style midtempo of “Pure Sticker Shock”; there's the harmonic shift that, in “Spooky Action”, after two and a half minutes, jolts us out of the illusion of listening to the new Fleetwood Mac and gracefully flings us into the solar system; there's the synthesis of intimacy and cybernetic hymns, almost in a Grandaddy vein, in the touching “Bonus Mai Tais”, boasting one of the record's most striking poetic images – “the sidereal doo-wop of rain echoing on the skylight”.

“The Former Side Of” closes out the record with the six-and-a-half minutes of the title track. The opening of electronic keyboards and apocalyptic lullaby is a Sufjan Stevens-esque mirage; from the roof of a church we watch the everyday world as we've known it progressively crumble; the tape rewinds with echoes of lyrics from earlier tracks, including the boat lost among the waves that we'd spotted in “Great Princess Story”. Then a climax of distortion and horns leaves us stranded in the middle of a heartland that seems to have lost its heart. The New Pornographers' class remains intact, it's the times that have changed – and it's time, Mr. Tambourine, to put your sweater back on. Newman and his bandmates have understood this, and do nothing but take responsibility for it.

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10/04/2026