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.”