The Twilight Days Of a Supergroup

From the first track of “Challengers” (Matador), the New Pornographers seem determined to undermine the “supergroup” image (and sound) that has followed them since their 2000 debut. With the wispy, delicate opener, “My Right Versus Yours,” the band sets a new tone and sounds eager to re-examine the formula of its past success — and this time with a touch of French horn.One way to do that is to showcase the talents of the individual members rather than craft songs as a unit. That it took four albums for this to happen to such a star-studded lineup is not surprising, because the stars themselves — Carl Newman, Dan Bejar, and the beloved Neko Case — built their respective solo careers from the reputations of what began as something of a collective from Vancouver, British Columbia. Now, the curse of individual success appears to have become a distraction for the members.Certainly, Mr. Newman has long been held and credited by the other members as the genius behind the pop music expertise that made the New Pornographers’ songs enjoyable to casual radio fans and music nerds alike. With dense songwriting that layered hooks and melodies into shimmering, exciting pop nuggets in easily consumed three-minute tracks, the band fueled its indie-rock success with the guitar glories of the 1970s and ’80s. On “Challengers,” Mr. Newman doesn’t so much dispense with his penchant for a great guitar riff and a hook that snowballs into five more as much as he lets the classic slow track — the make-out song — pervade the album, like one long drive along the beach.Maybe Brooklyn’s to blame. This year, Mr. Newman moved from Vancouver to that musician-laden borough, and it’s no coincidence that he’s now using the strings, horns, and flutes with which Williamsburg bands mark their territory. “Unguided,” an experiment in song length for Mr. Newman at six minutes and 30 seconds, is content to plod in a manner that no old NP song would have dared. But it is distinctly a song by Mr. Newman, one that could fit on his next solo album better than here.Mr. Bejar’s “Myriad Harbour” and “Entering White Cecilia” are thrilling, but they sound like Bsides from “Rubies,” his last album as Destroyer. A New York song, “Myriad Harbour” handles the changes from Velvet Underground-style talk of “stranded at Bleecker and Broadway / Looking for something to do” and the refrain of “who cares you always end up in the cit-y,” to flutters of harmonica and cello with all the Bejar-esque eccentricity.The album’s title track uses Ms. Case’s somewhat out-of-place sounding voice and a simple sentimentality to recall the lush pop songs of the Beautiful South. The same could be said for “Go Places,” a love song that manages to accomplish what many of the album’s other songs do not. “Yes, a heart will always go one step too far,” Ms. Case sings, “and a heart will always stay one day too long.” It recalls the loveliness of “The Bleeding Heart Show” from 2005’s “Twin Cinema.” But without the humming energy that surrounded many of the songs on that album, this track gets lost amid the monotony.Even on pointless songs such as “Failsafe,” the lyrics betray that pastiche of mysterious meaningfulness that is the signature of this band. But this decoration isn’t enough to carry the album or replace the joy of hearing classic pop fit into an ambitious indie mold. Having dodged the fate of most supergroups for this long, it might be time for a new arrangement. Or maybe it’s just a hiccup. What we can be sure of is that the individual talents here have much more to give, whether alone or together.

The Twilight Days Of a Supergroup

The Twilight Days Of a Supergroup

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