Challengers (Bonus Track Version)

iTunes Review

Like much of the indie-rock that precedes them, Vancouver’s New Pornographers approach pop music with a sense of unease. Though a shuffling collective of musicians with other musical day jobs – Neko Case has her solo career, Dan Bejar works with Destroyer, and so on – the band centers primarily on the songwriting of A.C. (Carl) Newman. Newman writes indelible hooks, but he obscures them with impenetrable lyrics and carefully dressed arrangements that provide for rewarding headphone listening when they don’t immediately jump out from the speakers. “My Rights Vs. Yours” pummels out of the gate with a bright welcoming disposition, “All The Things That Go To Make Heaven and Earth” fleshes out a garage rock band’s elemental jam and “Mutiny, I Promise You” recalls the fleeting optimism of the Association or Free Design channeled through a modern rock producer. But other tracks, such as “Myriad Harbour” and Entering White Cecilia” (both written by Bejar), work with ornate, layered textures and halting movements that combine male-female vocal lines with mild orchestration and unexpected turns of melody and atmosphere. Complex pop for thinking people.