Rock & Roll Report Card
Challengers (Last Gang)
The Deviance (Put On Your Drinking Cap)
A+ 90%
New Pornographers
Challengers
Last Gang
When the New Pornographers announced they were releasing a new album, I expected, and hoped for, another Twin Cinema. Upon first listen, Challengers left me cold—it was too distant, too sad, too aged.
Thankfully, this is an album that rewards repeat listeners, providing the opportunity to travel the space between the two albums, to participate in the growth that has taken place in the two years since. The album becomes a comfortably mature collection of narratives that embrace paradox, managing to be at once both jaded and hopeful. Though the sound is softer, it’s more complex than the power pop melodies that jangled through Twin Cinema. Lyrically, the Pornographers are at their best yet.
The track list mixes three of Dan Bejar’s songs with nine by A.C. Newman. Two stand-out songs on the album, “Unguided” and “Myriad Harbour,” are interpretations of New York City, as experienced by Newman and Bejar respectively, creating an interesting binary. “Unguided,” an epic more than six minutes long, chugs to a slow-building chorus of heartbreak, whereas Bejar’s tune is a conversation between Bejar and a responding chorus, capturing the impatience and chaos of the big city.
Vocal appearances by fellow Porns Neko Case and Kathryn Calder balance the sound—Case’s crisp voice cuts through Newman’s saccharine tone, while Calder’s adds depth to Bejar’s roughness. Case’s vocals on Newman’s dirge, “Go Places,” make it unexpectedly naïve and hopeful.
Though it may have not have the familiar punchy youthfulness, the retro-tinged and country-influenced Challengers maintains the shiny hooks and unashamed earnestness found on their earlier albums.
—Meghan Sheffield
A- 81%
The Deviance
The Deviance
Put On Your Drinking Cap
A literarily-inspired progressive rock opera, The Deviance’s self-titled album is a strangely playful reinterpretation of the English class staple Lord of the Flies.
William Golding probably didn’t see this coming, and your high school teacher probably wouldn’t include it in the curriculum, but this album taps into the book’s dark themes and matches them with all the energy of fed-up students. The Deviance captures the English schoolboys-turned-savage spirit with desperate cries as vocals and a mixture of dissonant and melodic rock. Representing Piggy’s anguish through distorted guitar riffs and a chorus of taunting upbeat shouts in “Hey Piggy!” shows how the band pushes the classic book through a modern filter. But not unlike the book, the album is still a bit dense. Musically intriguing with blunt, monologic lyrics (“I wonder where my glasses are at/ I want them back”). The Deviance gives the characters voices that inspire more of an emotional connection than any essay question could. As the album unfolds, the experimental journey into the heart of the story begins to feel jagged. Just as your attention lags, “You Never Told Me Not To Never Stay Away (From Nothing)” appears, tying the album up with a perfect blend of mournful discontent and sweet melodies in a relaxed, jamming-out style.
The Deviance manages to compose a concept album that turns well-worn material into a musical experiment for the literary-minded.
—Adèle Barclay
