Few musical idioms have proven as commercially unsuccessful, or as cultishly followed, as power pop. The genre emerged in the early '70s as a reaction against the pompously self-serious cock-rock excesses of bands like Led Zeppelin to combine the driving, chunky guitar riffs of The Who with tender, catchy melodies and the upbeat jangle of The Byrds. The '70s are seen as the golden age of this music, providing us with seminal half-forgotten acts like Big Star, The Raspberries, and Cheap Trick, and though many power pop bands had hits (Cheap Trick's "I Want You to Want Me" is perhaps best known), none of those bands crossed over to mainstream stardom.
Power pop's commercial problem, in essence, is that it's music for nerds " hopelessly sensitive, deceptively simple, it was never slick enough for mainstream pop radio, and it was far too emasculated for the average male rock consumer.
With their infinitely catchy and critically lauded albums "Mass Romantic" and "Electric Version," the Canadian supergroup The New Pornographers has emerged as one of the leading purveyors of the modern power pop sound. Formed by, among others, Zumpano vocalist Carl Newman and one-man band Dan Bejar of Destroyer, the band's success as one of the best-selling indie rock acts of the decade is largely a credit to their classic pop sensibility and unflaggingly catchy, effervescent melodies, sung by Newman, Bejar, Newman's niece Kathryn Calder, and alt-country chanteuse Neko Case.
Their latest album "Twin Cinema" is a grand experiment, an attempt by Newman and Bejar to inflect power pop, a genre which has traditionally idealized youth and especially teenagedom, with a distinctly mature sensibility, utilizing decidedly more complex instrumentation and eschewing the hallmark of the genre, the catchy pop chorus, in favor of introspective structural play. Newman has said in interviews that he's hoping to inflect the power pop sound with the influence of decidedly experimental bands like the neo-prog brother-sister outfit The Fiery Furnaces, adding, "We wanted to see if we could make a record that isn't referred to as 'the windows down, car-stereo-blasting summer album of the year,' if only once."
In this respect, "Twin Cinema" is a success " I don't imagine anyone blasting this from their car stereos in the same way people did their last two albums.
As an album, however, it is decidedly less successful. Mired in uninspired songwriting and lackluster production, the album never allows its experimental elements a proper forum. Instead of removing the ebullient tone of their previous albums, the band manages to merely remove the energy and inspiration which made their first two records seminal examples of their genre.
The album features song after song of uninspired and indistinguishable recordings, with vocals buried in the mix and unexceptional guitar lines placed at the front.
Where the band does succeed is exceedingly noticeable, which is perhaps the album's biggest trapping " the standout tracks stand out so much as to render the rest of the album unnecessary. "Sing Me Spanish Techno" is a fine single, with high energy vocals, chunky basswork, and a surprising chorus that grows in power with repeated listenings. "Jackie Dressed in Cobras," though it reminds this writer too much of Bejar's work with Destroyer, is strong, with a bouncing staccato rhythm and engaging syncopation that match Bejar's nasal tone perfectly.
Best on the album is the tight songcraft and moving harmonies of "The Bleeding Heart Show," which matches Kurt Dahle's gorgeous percussion with the record's one true transcendent moment, a "Hello Goodbye"-ripping minute-and-a-half long outro of "hey-la"s and Case's driving lead vocals rising above the mix.
In an album of lackluster songwriting, the cinematic atmosphere of "Show" is the best indication of the sort of success a few more months worth of writing might have made of this record. If his work on this song and "Jackie Dressed in Cobras" is any indication, Dahle, formerly of the seminal Saskatchewan rock act Age of Electric, has emerged as one of the finer drummers in indie rock.
Elsewhere, we're presented with a mixed bag. The lo-fi Bejar-Calder duet "Streets of Fire" is tender and pretty, but the song's build-up is a let-down, leading to a repetive outro that encompasses nearly two-thirds of the song. The vocal reverb on "Falling Through Your Clothes" gives the song a haunted tone, but the chorus simply sits stagnant.
Some songs, however, are outright failures. The headache-inducing "Three or Four" pairs Case with Newman in a grating falsetto over an obnoxiously repetitive guitar riff. The song's awkward mid-tempo pacing and excessively experimental bridge, which makes full eye-rolling use of the album's stereo production, is among the least likeable recordings in recent memory.
Calder's vocals on "The Bones of an Idol" don't seem restrained or subtle " instead they're just lifeless, with indecisive phrasing buried under a muddled production.
And "Broken Breads," one of three Bejar-written tracks, is almost completely phoned-in, as if he and Newman realized they needed another song just before the last day of recording and threw something together over egg salad sandwiches and a six-pack.
"Twin Cinema" is not an easy album to like, but it's one that I can't help but respect " it's clear that it's an album the New Pornographers needed to expunge from themselves, and its partial successes are enough to justify its existence. Next year, though, I'm expecting another album I can blast out of my car windows.
