New Pornographers - Mass Romantic

  by Cara Ross

published: 17 / 12 / 2001

---

“What the Hell is this?!” That was my first thought when I put this on. I had so many mixed feelings about this album on my first couple of listens. Initially I thought I hated it. Here we have this collection of “indie” staples who I always liked individually by their own right, who came together to then form the New Pornographers…a kind of a supergroup made up of no-one famous: members of Zumpano, thee Evaporators, Destroyers, Limblifter and Neko Case, once a Canadian punk goddess turned alternative country wailer, (and eeking out a real name for herself in doing so), and then all of them joining to do what can only strike me as some sort of re-vamped Styx pop opera for the new millennium. How does that sound? I’ve since come to conclude that this is easily the freshest, most creative AND most original album of the year, and seeing them live a couple weeks ago only cinched the deal for me (even though they seemed to be hammered almost to the point of being tedious..). At first I thought that putting Neko’s country wail into a more fast tempo pop deal was a bit of a stretch, but she still manages to really belt it out, and she’s definitely pushing her voice to its limit on tracks like 'Letter to an Occupant', where she manages to sing over guitar chords being played backwards, and to still make it melodic. The production on this album is very slick and very clean and very dense. There’s the feeling of about fifty layers to each song, and the very fact that this all managed to transfer well to their live show still amazes me. So while the credibility of some of these songs’ is dubious ('Catchiness' seems to be largely based on chronic repetition of every chorus), I think I can still forgive them that weakness when a track like 'Execution Day' sounds like the song robots would want to make if they actually had “feelings”. Awwww, isn’t that a touching image? There are crazy keyboards too on 'The Body Says No' that are reminiscent of cult movie tracks like Danny Elfman doing the soundtrack for 'Forbidden Zone', and loud, sort of “group-yelling” in Breakin’ the Law', as though everyone in the band wanted to be those kids from Pink Floyd’s 'The Wall'. You will love it or you will hate this zany mess. Or you will hate it at first and then come to love it.…

Track Listing:-

1 Introduction By Vijay Iyer
2 Prelude: I Want To Give Thanks
3 All Of The Sudden
4 Float, A
5 Waltz
6 Blues For Jaki Byard
7 We Who Labor
8 Radiance
9 Evolution
10 People, The
11 Agony Of Feelings Felt, The

Post A Comment

---

Comment

Name

your name

Location

ie London, UK

Submit

Check box to submit

Adam Coxon
Adrian Janes
Amanda J. Window
Andrew Twambley
Anthony Dhanendran
Benjamin Howarth
Cila Warncke
Daniel Cressey
Darren Aston
Dastardly
Dave Goodwin
Denzil Watson

Dixie Ernill
Dominic B. Simpson
Eoghan Lyng
Fiona Hutchings
Harry Sherriff
Helen Tipping
Jamie Rowland
John Clarkson
Julie Cruickshank
Kimberly Bright
Lisa Torem
Maarten Schiethart

Malcolm Carter
Marie Hazelwood
Mark Rowland
Nick Dent-Robinson
Nicky Crewe
Nige Nudds
Philamonjaro
Richard Lewis
Shirley Procter
Spencer Robertshaw
Steev Burgess
Steve Kinrade

Steve Miles
Tommy Gunnarsson
Zena Grieg