Carl Newman Discusses "Brill Bruisers," the New Pornographers Album*

like that gatefold.

 

http://www.spin.com/reviews/new-pornographers-brill-bruisers/

Not since the legendary I Love Lucys has a band repped for red hair harder than the New Pornographers. Rather than playing the pheomelanin freak card like Tori Amos or waving a flame-headed flag like La Roux or Simply Red, the band's four gingers—singer-songwriter/co-producer Carl Newman, bassist/producer John Collins, singer/guitarist/keyboardist Kathryn Calder, and moonlighting supernova Neko Case – build a blare with their dominant-gene bandmates that's biologically left of ordinary. For as much as they overtly and unconsciously reference decades of classic rock and pop, the Vancouver-formed, now multi-city octet always twist the results. By design, they're never normative.

As its title suggests, Brill Bruisers gets feisty while celebrating the compositional craft that made New York's Brill Building a locus for tune-driven fa-la-la. Reversing their gradual progression toward gentler, grander grooves, the Pornographers' sixth album is both their liveliest since their first and their most immediate. Strip it down to its propulsive guitars and Brill Bruisers is practically punk: There are as many speedy distorted chords as there are synths gurgling out willfully plastic arpeggios. Xanadu, later-day ELO, and New Wave glam oddballs Sigue Sigue Sputnik are all consciously conjured, but there's plenty of Pixies too.

That's not an entirely unprecedented approach: The Apples in Stereo did it on 2007's similarly bubbly yet spunky New Magnetic Wonder. What makes Brill Bruisers more than an imitative triumph is that it culminates what the New Pornographers have been doing right for 14 years. No other 21st century band boasts a broader, more idiosyncratic combination of voices: the mild-mannered but barbed rocker (Newman), the deadpan Dada poet (Destroyer's Dan Bejar), the cooing crooner (Calder), and the C&W belter (Case). They've occasionally juxtaposed their dissimilar styles for maximum effect on career peaks like Electric Version's surging "The Laws Have Changed," but here they do that throughout, and the resulting cumulative motion elevates the already exuberant material: This is the most consistent entry in their rarely flagging catalog.

The opening title track announces this achievement with a majestic choral equivalent of a bugle call. Celebrating the glory of rock, Newman avoids cliché with extended metaphors that revel in the sounds of words, not just their meaning: "We go in fighting, decrying the rising star dying from its own virus," he muses. "It's tied in, a fire in love with sirens." "Champions of Red Wine" showcases an uncharacteristically fireworks-free Case, who's briefly pushed aside by an even classier chiming guitar solo. She and Newman come together for "Fantasy Fools," a second round of self-mythologizing fabulousness. "We were the fortune seekers with backyard dreams that bleed their secrets," Newman sings of his band fighting the odds with flesh and stealth.

Like the aforementioned tracks, nearly every cut lauds the lovely folly of being in a big rock gang in a cost-cutting era of twosomes, a time when their communal bliss gets continuously upstaged by tech cowboys and celebrity ninjas. "I wanted to stay true to the cause, but look what we're living in," Bejar laments as a chugging guitar army fights the good fight in his explosive "War on the East Coast." "There is another west, much wilder," Newman continues in "Backstairs." Fronting an eight-member ensemble never gets old; it's the ground beneath him that keeps changing. Having examined his personal life on 2012's solo Shut Down the Streets, he now speaks for the team, folding his cry into Case's and Calder's. The intensity backs off midway through Bruisers but not the tempo: Drummer Kurt Dahle, a key but often overlooked Porn-ster, breaks from pushing the beat onward only on "Another Drug Deal of the Heart," a brief rewrite of a vinyl B-side, but even here metronomic guitars and staccato keys maintain locomotive momentum.

These history-conscious vets aim to compete for clicks with today's too-desperate upstarts, but they do so with more than simple ADD-busting earworms. Time and time again, they affirm their faith. "What the heart can't imagine, we'll trust," Case asserts in "Marching Orders." "I wanted you quite often," Bejar admits in the suspense-building "Born with a Sound," and the object of his desire is continual inspiration, perpetual creation. "I still see hope for you," Newman and Case serenade together in "Wide Eyes," and they share the same "you" as Bejar: They want not only to stay in the game; they lust for victory.

"Now I got, got the floor!" Newman and Calder rejoice in the vocoder hiccupping "Dancehall Domine" as Dahle crashes and wallops. There's no room for doubt, just affirmation and joy, and as the album reaches its final stretch, only "Hi-Rise," the penultimate cut, lets the tension slightly slacken, but the hooks never relent; synths keep goosing the acoustic guitars. Finally, "You Tell Me Where" consummates the disc on yet another hopeful high note. "Baby beware, I'm not always square," Newman warns between one last round of Case blasts, making good on his threat with something new—an assured snarl. It's a blatant rock star move, and although he's recently become a family man, he's never before been this ready for trouble. No doubt the bullies back in school kept Red on the run, but this time he and his comrades in cardinal don't back down. They go for what they've been craving all these years. Not to fit in, but to bust out.

 

They'll be on Letterman next Wednesday. Here's from the last time they were on:

 

I like it! Every song is good and you don't see that very often. I don't anyway. On tour with The Pains of Being Pure At Heart? Cool!

 

I got my deluxe splatter version in the mail today. I could be wrong, but it looks more like this was pressed at GZ Vinyl.

Clues:

1) I've got McCartney's New and the Clearly Classic version of Let It Bleed. Those all have GZ vinyl's website in the deadwax with a certain machine-stamped style. Brill Bruisers has the same machine-stamped font style but no website in the deadwax.

2) I've got the EU version of the Stereo Beatles LP set which was definitely pressed at Optimal. I've got the 3 Parlophone releases this past RSD (Idle Race, July & Yardbirds). All of their handwritten deadwax info matches and isn't anything like the McCartney, Stones or Brill Bruisers LPs.

3) I don't think that New, LIB and Brill Bruisers are linked by mastering houses using that deadwax style. New was mastered at Sterling and the other 2 weren't. (This was based on the assumption that the Beatles and Parlophone RSD trio could be the same mastering house, ie Abbey Road, hence the matching handwritten deadwax)

My best guess.. GZ vinyl.

Still... it is a nice issue. Mine is flat, 98% quiet and looks nice spinning on the table.

 

It hadn't occurred to me that it would be GZ, since I haven't ever seen anything pressed there that didn't have the GZ.com or Pirate Press in the deadwax.

 

A reminder that they'll be on David Letterman's show tonight.

 

so good. really excited to see them in November.

 

Who is that third woman who has appeared in the band?

 

Not loving the new record to be honest. Not as much melody or hooks as "Together," which is their masterpiece IMO.

Lots of riffs and repetition on Brill Bashers but that's about it. Maybe it'll grow on me but nothing has stood out so far.

 

How is the mastering of the CD for anyone who has purchased it? Just wondering if there are any advantages to paying more for the vinyl, besides the attractiveness.

 

Im loving the new album so I think I'll pick up a vinyl copy. Do all copies come as splattered or is this a super limited run?

 

Was "Together" your first intro to the New Pornographers? Im surpised to hear you say masterpiece for that album. Thats my least favorite (to each their own of course). I think Id take all of their previous output over Together any day.

 

It is a limited run of the Matador pressing. Here in Canada, the album was released by a different label, Last Gang Records. They have pressed 175 copies each of the following colours: green, orange, purple and blue. More info here: http://lastgang.myshopify.com/products/brill-bruisers.

 

Thanks!

 

Coco Hames, the frontwoman of The Ettes.

 

I love the New Pornographers, been a fan since I first heard "Twin Cinema". Together is their masterpiece, I love Dan Bejar and Destroyer, and his poppier material really strengthened that album.

"Brill Bruisers" is still growing on me, there's only four perfect pop songs (Brill Bruisers, War on the east coast, champions of red wine, & backstairs).

I stopped buying CDs a couple of years ago, so I can only comment on the splattered LP, which sounds really great to me.

Is there any reason Dan Bejar doesn't play with them on "The Late Show"?

 

Even when he's touring with the band -- he and Neko will both be on the current tour -- Dan only comes onstage for his songs.

 

I don't think it was especially limited . . . Bull Moose has the splatter copies in stock at their stores.

 

I like the album a lot. For me it's not quite as good as Twin Cinema or Together, but those were pretty lofty heights. Every song is good. Another set of very well crafted pop songs, beautifully crafted.

 

Hour-long concert at The Brill Building in NYC:

http://www.npr.org/event/music/347374290/the-new-pornographers-live-in-concert

Setlist:

• "Moves"
• "Myriad Harbour"
• "Dancehall Domine"
• "The Laws Have Changed"
• "War On The East Coast"
• "Twin Cinema"
• "Fantasy Fools"
• "Mass Romantic"
• "Spidyr"
• "Brill Bruisers"
• "Backstairs"
• "Testament To Youth In Verse"
• "Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk"
• "The Bleeding Heart Show"

 

Haha - yes it was my first NP album actually. Something about those tracks are super catchy and very melodic moreso than any of their other records.

 

Really enjoying Brill Bruisers. Pop rock fans should take note, this is a solid album filled with great songs. I've listened to it a few times and there are only 2 songs I'm not crazy about. I skipped over the last 2 New Pornographers albums (sort of thinking I had grown tired of them) but bought this on a whim and now am wondering if I should check out Challengers & Together

 

I am loving this album. I am a big fan of Twin Cinema and Together, and initially on my first two or three listens found BB a little vanilla in comparison, but now that I've sat down and listened to the vinyl and streamed the album on Spotify in my car a few more times I would say it's become one of my favorite releases of 2014. Right up there with their best work.