Challengers by: Al Cottrill Tue:18-Sep-07 Label: Matador Year: 2007 WB rating 80 out of 100

The New Pornographers hate the term ‘supergroup’. It is possibly a fair position given that this conception has made the members much of their reputations. Yet despite their varied protestations, a supergroup is what they are. While Blaine Thurier, Todd Fancey, Kurt Dahle, Kathryn Calder and John Collins have all had middlingly successful careers outside of the band, Neko Case, Carl Newman and Dan Bejar have all graduated from Canadian local heroes into full-blown indie stars. While possibly unfair to concentrate such focus on this trinity in particular, any objections shall be referred to the splendour of Bejar’s Destroyer, meticulous beauty of Case and Newman’s power-pop benchmark Slow Wonder. If they were not a supergroup circa 2000’s Mass Romantic, with their fourth album Challengers there can be no doubt. And that is the concern: will the band survive the precocious talents’ and personal focuses of the A.C. Newman, Destroyer and Neko Case monikers?

So, to the music. While many immediately point to Challengers as being more mature due to its deceleration, restraint is not an automatic equivalent to maturation. Their previous albums weren’t immature, so it is lazy to lapse into obsequy without analysis. Challengers is still laden with hooks – not surprisingly given Newman, and even Bejar’s sometimes hidden, natural predilection and talent for pop – but there is a limiter applied. The opening two tracks both demonstrate this newly minted concern. ‘All the Old Showstoppers’ is The New Pornographers in slow burn, Newman’s melodies smouldering as his voice is gradually augmented by Case’s. Its fastidious build-up promises much as the volume and instrumentation increases, threatening more than once to burst into excitement. No truer than in the final bars, it pines for a ‘Letter From an Occupant’ style breakout. It is not the only time Challengers is denied its climax, nor the first time for which that fantastic song would be yearned. Once, New Pornographers didn’t have to work to fill in every corner of songs, their force of personality and ability instilling life into every alcove and orifice, leaving tracks brimming with energy. Instead, opener ‘My Rights Versus Yours’, while better, has been given an orchestral whitewash, string-section flourishes filling in the bridge, and the song faltering at take-off. That said, they are both intricately shaped pieces of melody-laden pop that you will remember long after this album has passed. As opposed, it is the poppier tracks reminiscent of early work that fail to grab, ‘All The Things…’ a by-the-numbers composition that lacks the pop and crackle of true purpose, and ‘Mutiny, I Promise You’ a shadow of Newman’s previous melodies, relying too heavily on their quick-fire chugging trademark.

Following third is the title track, one of the album’s true growers. In Case’s voice The New Pornographers know they have an amazing gift. It flows easily from lilting resonance into an ethereal clarity, and every time it lifts in ‘Challengers’, the song goes with it. Her understudy, Calder, while a competent replacement, lacks the strength to make a song her own, as evidenced in the shimmering, yet hook-less ‘Failsafe’. Bejar’s first song, the playful ‘Myriad Harbour’, cements the album introduction. The suggestive camaraderie is at first disconcertingly coy, and effeminate, yet as the song veers from musical theatre call-and-response to Destroyer-style narration, it becomes a fantastic wall of sound peaking just after the writer himself sleazes back in with “I walked into the local record store and asked for an American music anthology/It sounds fun”. His other contributions (‘Entering White Cecilia’ and ‘The Spirit of Giving’) veer closer to his Destroyer persona, yet still fit within Challengers framework of subdued textures. In fact, Bejar’s work is the most pleasing, his po-faced oration relaxed, and a momentary sense of knowing absurdity entering his usually sober cryptic lyrics and gnarled delivery, especially in the teasing and thoroughly enjoyable ‘Entering White Cecilia’.

In essence, what Challengers lacks are ‘YES!’ moments, those perfect snatches wherein they provoke scarce comparison. Like in ‘Chump Change’, where Bejar’s Teflon vocals slide across the absurd “The same sand the desert uses” as though it were a stunning revelation, ‘These Are The Fables’ impossibly rich, yet perfectly flawed “My street” shout, and Case again destroying all comers in ‘Letter From an Occupant’s giddily repeated titular line. You could go on. But Challengers is a watered down version of this beauty, and while still captivating in its resplendence, it lacks the absolute peaks of previous work (With possibly one exception: the touching and eloquent ‘Go Places’ where Case sings Newman’s “From somewhere Encida/Deus Ex Machina/Good morning Christina.”) With the increasing success of each member’s solo projects drawing time away from The New Pornographers, it is not surprising that these highlights – that may only grow organically from time spent together – are lacking. Their’s are high standards, and really this is the only catch holding Challengers back; the missing little bit extra, (dare I say it) that X-factor. In otherwise excellent material, it is all that stops Challengers truly excelling.

At their best, they can threaten an album of the year. Accordingly, at their worst they are still better than most. The New Pornographers have proved, unsurprisingly, that they can do restraint, maturity and beauty – but at what cost? The hooks don’t catch quite as easily, their barbs blunted by New Pornographers newfound preference for circumspection. The muted tones of age and circumstance may not be a perfect fit, taking longer than most to trip, yet reward as much in its untiring competency. Yet to an extent, the question needs to be asked. Are The New Pornographers destined to be simply excellent, to continually release material of such high quality due simply to sheer weight of talent, with each member contributing discrete parts whitewashed as a whole? Surely there is still a chance, whereby such variously talented and familiar artists’ output can together reach transcendence. Challengers is not it, but succeed it does regardless.