Artist: The New Pornographers
Album: Together
Released: May 2010
Label: Matador Records
Genre: power pop
Purchase date: 06 May 2010
Format: mp3 files
Source: eMusic
It's always a good year for music when The New Pornographers release an album. This has been one of my favorite bands for a few years now, so I downloaded their fifth album on its release date without hearing any of it. While I wasn't disappointed, Together finds this indie rock supergroup playing it safe and not messing with their formula: hooky, catchy melodies paired with very obscure lyrics (mostly penned by A.C. Newman). Newman is the main creative force behind New Pornographers. Neko Case provides lead vocals to many of the tracks, with Newman singing most of the other songs that he penned. Dan Bejar sings lead on the two tracks he contributed. The standouts tracks are "Crash Years" and "Your Hands."
While very good, this isn't the band's strongest effort. (That would be, in my opinion, 2003's Electric Version.) The songs sound a little too much like other New Pornographers songs (or A.C. Newman songs, for that matter), and the track sequence is a little disjointed. There also isn't a bowl-you-over-with-sheer-awesomeness track that all of their other albums seems to have. However, all-in-all, it's still a very good album-- just not their masterpiece. In a weaker year for music, this would probably still make my top 10 list, but 2010 has been an exceptional year, so they have a lot of competition in that regard.
Rating: A-
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