The New Pornographers “Mass Romantic”

sfilzen — Tue, 02 Dec 2025 20:49:06 +0000

The New Pornographers “Mass Romantic” 2000. Limited edition reissue (2021) on red vinyl, Matador Records (originally released on Mint Records). The debut album from the indie “supergroup” that features Neko Case and a bunch of Canadian dudes including founders A.C. Newman (who still was going by Carl when the LP came out and whose songwriting I absolutely adore; he was formerly in Superconductor and Zumpano) and Daniel Bejar (from Destroyer, and if memory serves me from seeing NP several times has or developed severe stage fright and stopped touring with NP awhile back), plus Kurt Dahle (Limblifter), John Collins (The Evaporators) and Blaine Thurier who wasn’t in a band prior but is/was a filmmaker so helped with their videos and played synths. Mass Romantic is excellent indie pop, with lots of complexity while still having a very accessible pop sensibility. The layers of melodies are Beatlesque in quality and the interplay of vocals between Case, Newman and Bejar are stellar. While the record did not chart, it did make several best-of lists for the year/era.

I love the entire album but top picks are the opener/title track “Mass Romantic,” the anthemic-flavored “The Slow Descent Into Alcoholism,” the dense and piano-forward “To Wild Homes,” the Neko-forward “Letter From an Occupant,” and the final track “Breakin’ the Law” which according to Wiki “was taken from [Bejar’s band] Destroyer’s first album We’ll Build Them a Golden Bridge. The group vocals at the end of “Breakin’ the Law” are credited to the Camp Northstar Kids’ Chorus, a reference to the Canadian comedy film Meatballs. The chorus is actually every member of the band singing. Newman stated, ‘I like the fact that people think that it’s a kids’ group … We made ourselves sound like a giant group, but we ended up sounding like little kids. I love the fact that in the Rolling Stone review they mention the chorus of kids. I just think it’s great that people actually believe that, because it’s such a fucking ridiculous thing for a band to do.'”

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The New Pornographers “Brill Bruisers”

sfilzen — Tue, 08 Sep 2020 21:05:49 +0000

The New Pornographers “Brill Bruisers” 2014. Today, September 8th, is New Pornographers co-lead vocalist Neko Case’s 50th birthday (b. 1970). I really really love The New Pornographers, the indie rock super-group with, like, a zillion members (not really, but there are a lot of them). I absolutely adore primary composer A.C. Newman’s songwriting – his solo albums are fantastic – and he also takes lead vocals on many of the New Pornographers’ songs. Dan Bejar (who is no longer in the band – I saw him perform with the group when they toured for Brill Bruisers and it was weird: he only came on stage to sing his songs and then would scurry off; a friend said that he had severe stage fright) also writes and sings lead on some of the songs on Brill Bruisers, the group’s 4th LP which hit #13 in the US. The New Pornographer’s 2007 release Challengers is one of my top records by anyone of all-time and Brill Bruisers is pretty great, too. I love the dense title track “Brill Bruisers,” the swirling of both “Champions of Red Wine” and “Marching Orders” (Neko Case has lead vocals on both of these), the Pixies-ish “War on the East Coast,” the beautiful harmonies on “Wide Eyes” and another dense crasher: “Dancehall Domine.”

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The New Pornographers “Mass Romantic”

The New Pornographers “Brill Bruisers”