Album Review: The New Pornographers - Brill Bruisers

Until The Zit Remedy from Degrassi Junior High reunite, the title of Canada’s leading alt. super group will remain with The New Pornographers. And with Brill Bruisers, it’s clear they have no intention of giving up that title anytime soon. 

That patented eclectic but somehow unified Pornographers sound is immediately evident. From Champions Of Red Wine, built on dancing electronica, subdued guitars far off in the distance and hypnotic Neko Case vocals; to Fantasy Fools, which uses what sounds like the synthesiser from the opening credits of Rugrats; to Backstairs, dabbling in a little Daft Punk-style vocodering – this is loud and loose, calm and quiet, slickly produced and stripped back, new and vintage. Brill Bruisers does an impressive job of jumping from every corner of the music spectrum at their disposal, while always sounding like a coherent album, headed in one direction.

Once again, Carl Newman, Neko Case and Dan Bejar et al are the veritable Voltron of indie rock. The New Pornographers’ greatest strength has always been their ability to take these strong and disparate artistic voices and ideas and somehow make gorgeous harmonies, instead of just a big mess of butting heads. Long past the slack cut via their novelty, super group status, this album shows that The New Pornographers isn’t just some side project for its members when they have time away from their main bands and solo careers. The sum of this band’s parts would be impressive enough, but like their entire catalogue, Brill Bruisers exceeds that sum in every way.