Speaking of bands made up of seven highly talented band members, it only makes sense that The New Pornographers' Together should follow the Arcade Fire's Suburbs on our top ten list.
I confess, I resisted checking out the Pornographers for awhile, based on their name* alone. However, I had a chance to cover their show in Portland this past fall for the music website I write for, and I can rarely say no to a free show. Plus, when I realized Neko Case, who I'd been a fan of for some time, was one of the members of the Canadian power-pop group, I knew there was a good chance I'd love them.
I started listening to Together in preparation for covering the show, and the album instantly grabbed me. There isn't a bad track on the thing. From lead singer A.C. Newman's staccato on the album-opening "Moves" to Neko Case's powerful vocals on the stand-out "Crash Years" to Dan Bejar's distinctive, raspy stylings on "Silver Jenny Dollar," each track is completely different yet somehow complementary to the next. And on tracks like "Sweet Talk, Sweet Talk," the group shows their ability to blend together their divergent sounds to create one beautiful, very catchy song.
The twelve track album is a brilliant collection, worth a listen or a purchase by both old New Pornographer fans and those who've never given the band a listen. It's an album that functions equally well as an introduction to the group as it does an expansion on what the group has created with other albums, including the beloved Mass Romantic.
*I decided I didn't mind the band's name, once I read someone's commentary that claimed the name was chosen by Newman in response to a comment by Jimmy Swaggart that rock and roll was the "new pornography." However, in researching this blog, I learned (via Wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt), that that information may not actually be totally true.
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