The New Pornographers - Together

Paul's Choice:

The New Pornographers - Together

Friend Review:

Alright, let’s review this puppy. I have the saddest past with The New Pornographers. I first heard them in the video game Rock Band… and that’s about it. Sad, right? Anyways, it’s always nice to listen to a band for the first time despite how far behind everyone else you are.
This is a bit of a difficult review for me to write because I’m not sure what there is to say about this album. Ahem. Alright guys, you ready for this? Here it is:

IT’S ALRIGHT.

That’s it. There’s nothing really to set this apart from other indie rock albums, nothing new or exciting just plain good ol’ indie rock. While there wasn’t anything spectacular about this album, there also wasn’t anything terrible. Okay, my one complaint is the vocals. Everything sounds a bit lofty which I think gets old kinda quick but it’s not too bad. If you need something new to check out, go ahead and give this album a listen. You might like it more than I did and I wouldn’t be surprised. You also might find it boring and I wouldn’t be surprised. I would not trust anybody who calls this album amazing or awful (having said that, I really hope Taylor found this album about average as well). Anyways, I wouldn’t mind checking out The New Pornographers’ other albums after listening to this, I only hope that they can break out of being just mediocre and create something great.

Friend Rating:

6.0

Hipster Review:

I've known the New Pornographers for quite a while; about three years ago the blissful joy of their album Electric Version blew me away. After that I dived right into the band, their other two albums Mass Romantic and Twin Cinemas turning out to be even more satisfyingly infectious. The supergroup, consisting of several relatively well-known indie songwriters such as Neko Case and Carl Newman, and together they proved to be master Power pop craftsmen; it was easy to tell why they were such an acclaimed group. Then later that year came Challengers, the group's fourth album...
Even after the initial disappointment wore off, it was difficult to look at the album as anything but a harmless, toothless bore. It just didn't have the spirit or heart of their previous outings, and while granted, it wasn't a complete failure, it was a nonetheless an unfortunate misstep. Now the band returns with Together, in hopes of regaining the ground they lost with their last effort. Unfortunately, the album falls into many of the pitfalls that Challengers did, mostly in the song structuring department. While most of the songs here carry that New Pornographers signature, the attempts again feel rather toothless, hollow shells of what they could've been. Whether it's overproduction or a song being too long, the songs just feel lacking. The first half of the record is actually quite solid (the opener "Moves" is my favorite song on the album). But as the second half kicks in, the pace slows and the record loses it's momentum. It is better than Challengers, for sure; in this case, however, that's not saying much.

Hipster Rating:

6.5

Note, after further review, Taylor changed his review from a 7.3 to a 6.5.

Coming up on Sunday, High Violet by The National!