Note: This originally appeared in Toast magazine as a tag-team review with the zine's music editor John F. Butland. His comments appear in this highly intelligent shade of blue. Mine appear in this site's normal strictly average color. The New Pornographers, led by Zumpano's Carl Newman and featuring members of Destroyer, Thee Goblins, and Limblifter as well as alt-country hottie Neko Case, are being touted as a Vancouver indie supergroup. That they are: the buzz is pretty intense, and I think it worked against the CD for me, in that I was expecting, stupidly, to be blown away from the get-go. Several listens in, the songs' hooks had sunk in and partially justified the hype, but I think I would have preferred experiencing the record with less exalted expectations. The whole concept of supergroups has never borne very sweet fruit and this bunch, Neko notwithstanding, operates pretty far under mainstream radar to be considered a supergroup. While Newman's contributions are audible, I'm not sure about that "led by": I hear the influence of Dan Bejar from Destroyer as co-equal with Newman - at least judging from the sonic similarity of this record to Destroyer's Thief (recommended, incidentally). And for me, Neko Case's role is pretty secondary: she sings lead on only two tracks and backing on a handful of others, but again it's Newman and Bejar whose vocals dominate. Consumer Alert to Neko Case fans… I was kinda ambivalent about Mass Romantic initially. The tracks where Neko sings lead, "Letter From An Occupant" and the title track, are instantly appealing but others are more problematic. I'm not sure how I define "instant" - at least after only a handful of listens, the choruses of "The Fake Headlines," "The Body Says No," "Execution Day," and especially "Mystery Hours" had certainly done the "instantly appealing" thing. "Mass Romantic," with its bouncy, crunchy riff delivers on the promise of Blondie where Debbie Harry and crew never did. It's what they might have sounded like if Kirsty MacColl had sung lead for them. Some of the other songs, like "Jackie," with its twists and turns and the wealth of words crammed into it, struck me as just too clever-Trevor in their self-conscious complexity and precious ornateness. Still, the pregnant pauses near the end hook me every time. The sound is incredibly dense with a wealth of guitars and keyboards, and it's smart pop to be sure but sometimes I suspect it's just too smart for its own good. Some tracks still strike me that way, but the more I listen the more I find myself mentally humming a bridge or chorus in the shower or when I get dressed in the morning. Yep - see my comments above, and I'm finding, too, this is one of those albums whose songs appear mysteriously on my mental jukebox, unbidden and misfiled under "Songs I've Known for Years." This is a Good Thing. "Mystery Hours," for example, gives off a strong Game Theory/Loud Family vibe. And "The Mary Martin Show" maybe even more so. Others have remarked on a similarity to Guided By Voices - I must be getting old because I hear T. Rex, Roxy Music, and Mott The Hoople, a trio of GbV antecedents, in there. "Old" has arrived for me for some time, apparently, since I really don't hear GbV at all - but I certainly hear a lot of those other bands. In general, the record exudes a very strong glam-rock appeal to the Fabulous: I feel as if I should be wearing sequins or at least lamé while listening. The GbV comparison raises another issue: even though I don't hear that band in these songs' busy arrangements full of reverbed guitars, vocal choruses, and thrift-shop keyboards, the recording is a bit raw and noisy in approved GbV fashion. One of my faves is "To Wild Homes." The big, echoing massed instruments, alternating lead vocals, and acoustic guitar power chords make it sound like Phil Spector producing Tommy demos in his basement. Amazing stuff. The comparison you make to Phil Spector is more apt than the GbV one: the aesthetic is wall of sound, not 10,000 carefully and scientifically isolated bricks, each lovingly framed. The rawness and noisiness of the recording cuts some of the fussiness of the arrangement. Maybe it was that dense sound that left me somewhat nonplussed. It took a while to delve into the lush poppy quagmire and prise the songs apart enough to appreciate them. 'Cause I gotta admit that I'm hooked now - I just want to keep playing this puppy although parts still annoy me. I'll second the "took a while" part: there's so much going on here that at times the hooks become buried. But ultimately the overdressed exuberance of these songs is what really makes them. Yes, I also enjoy music stripped down to its barest, functional elements - but after too much of that, and too much hiding behind an ironically disaffected aspect, there's a real sense of liberation that comes from hearing big, noisy, overproduced recordings. It reminds me of the scenes in Pleasantville where color arrives: all the grim indie-rock four-track pieties are overturned (probably why I'm not hearing GbV in here), and I realize that sense of color has been missed. Your comparison to Pleasantville is spot on. The CD certainly does have a sense of life that's lacking from so much indie rock lately. Of course, I don't know which parts annoy you, John - but certainly Bejar's nasal, high-pitched singing might be an acquired taste. I think I like the band more for being willing to put its idiosyncrasies front and center: no attempts here to demographic-research and concede, "hmm…there are those who might not like that voice, so we'll mix it down. And put a picture of Neko in a bathtub on the cover while we're at it." For me, the record is growing into its hype the more I listen to it - and that "more" keeps happening.

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