CHMA 106.9 FM Record Review: The New Pornographers / Challengers

There's been a lot of complaints around the internet music reviewosphere that The New Pornographers' newest record, Challengers, is bad or worse than previous release than Twin Cinema. This isn't entirely true. While critics are quite right to point out that Twin Cinema doesn't measure up in breadth or depth to its predecessor, it's not simply because the songs are boring or less interesting.

As with most other New Pornographer releases, this record is built around the vocal and melodic talents of its primary members, not to mention the pop hooks and melodic talents for which Carl Newman has become rather well known, not to mention a backing band that adds enough depth to the pop melodies to make them into rock and roll songs.

The main difference here is not so much that the New Pornographers are playing slow songs. The problem here is that all the catchy and showy vocal melodies, which actually serve as excellent window dressing for a band that is actually made up of some very talented musicians and a very brilliant songwriter in Carl Newman, really don't have as much depth to them as records past. Newman even gave his backing musicians on his solo release, The Slow Wonder, more wiggle room than this. Here his band seems underused, even bored.

Every New Pornographers release gets old after the melodies are worn out after a few listens, and Challengers offers the exact same feeling of exhiliration upon first listen. The difference here is that this just gets old quicker than most New Pornographer records.