The New Pornographers- Challengers

Sometimes I wonder if I'm not critical enough of music. Lately I find myself writing more positive reviews than negative ones and I begin to wonder if I'm losing my edge; am I going soft, being too nice and accommodating to albums that, during the heat of youth, I would have dismantled with precision?? Perhaps it's just that I'm more selective about what I bother to review--why say anything if all you have is nothing nice?? Bad reviews are fun to write, but I actually find they're more difficult to write because it's harder to articulately posit criticisms than it is to repeat "boy, this sucks" in increasing volume and tenacity.

I bring this up because Challengers is one of very few recent albums I've flat out not enjoyed and I've had trouble getting my head around precisely why I don't think it's good. I wish it were as simple as "it's not as good as their other albums" because then we could just drop that on the table and nod, offering up witticisms about taste being subjective before we put on Led Zeppelin IV and open some beers. But while it is indeed not as good as their other albums, there's more going on in Challengers than just an example of an inferior sequel.

I think everyone can agree that the first three New Pornographers albums are of-a-piece. They don't sound identical, but they're all working from the same indie pop/power pop blueprint. They contain some of the catchiest and most addictive songs from this decade, and I can't say enough good things about them. At the same time that the New Pornographers "supergroup" was cranking them out, the members of the band--including A.C. Newman (aka Carl Newman), Neko Case, and Destroyer (aka Dan Bejar)--were producing really great 'solo' albums. At some point after the release of the third New Pornographers album, Twin Cinema, the solo work began to infect the "supergroup", and it was not for the best.

I don't want to say that the only thing the New Pornographers are good at is their aesthetic as described above, but, well, Challengers doesn't prove that they're good at anything else. It sounds like A.C. Newman's The Slow Wonder, Neko Case's Fox Confessor Brings The Flood, and Destroyer's Rubies smashed together in a car crash with Twin Cinema. The mix isn't so much a White Album-esque "each Beatle with the other three backing him" vibe as it is a watered down, confused mess. Even the songs which do play to their strengths--like 'All Of The Things That Go To Make Heaven And Earth' and 'Mutiny, I Promise You'--strike me as b-side quality. Elsewhere, I can't help but wonder what 'Go Places', 'My Rights Versus Yours', and 'Entering White Cecilia' might have sounded like if delivered on the respective 'solo' wings of Neko Case, A.C. Newman, and Destroyer.

What Challengers lacks most of all is hooks. "Hooks" are a very vague idea that everyone understands but nobody can explain, and this album is a great example of what not having hooks can do to your album. The first three New Pornographers albums had hooks spilling out of the speakers. The solo albums mentioned above have plenty of hooks without having to always be the "go for the throat!!" power pop of the New Pornographers. Yet even after listening to Challengers for the fifth time, I still don't remember much of anything about it. Normally the Dan Bejar songs are the highlights of a New Pornographers album: 'Jackie, Dressed In Cobras' is one of my favorite songs, ever, from any band or album. However, his contributions to Challengers are his weakest yet, a weakness that would begin to seem symptomatic with his kind-of-meh, hit-or-miss new album Trouble In Dreams. Meanwhile Carl Newman steadfastly tries to remake his solo album in this setting and comes up wanting again and again. Part of the blame for the hook-less can be placed at the feet of the increasingly dominant acoustic/orchestral sound the band began to head in during Twin Cinema. I think it needs to be said: acoustic instruments don't belong in the New Pornographers. At least not as the main instruments.

I hesitate to be too negative toward Challengers because I have ample evidence in and out of the discography of the New Pornographers that they're capable of incredible things. I keep telling myself that maybe it's me and not the album; maybe I don't "get it" yet and on this listen I will. But this is not a difficult album: there is nothing to get. It is what it is, and what Challengers happens to be is a creative misstep, not a disaster but a true disappointment if there ever was one.