New Pornographers : Challengers

Full title is: Challengers

THE NEW PORNOGRAPHERS return with their fourth album and their first recorded outside of bassist John Collins's basement studio. Airier, more spacious and more relaxed than its jackhammer predecessors, 'Challengers' is the sound of songwriters Carl Newman and Dan B?jar stretching out. In a recent Pitchfork interview, Newman rejected the 'power-pop' label and suggested 'power-folk' instead, and several songs on the new album live up to it, particularly the luscious Neko Case fronted ballads 'Go Places' and 'Challengers.' That's not to say the band doesn't play anthems - it certainly does, but a rousing track like B?jar's 'Myriad Harbour' is more imbued with the ghosts of Fred Neil and Viv Stanshall than with the new-wave songsters of yore. In general, Newman's songwriting is slightly more scrutable this time around; his lyrics still ring with wry perception and political metaphor, but betray some of the magnanimity that comes with new love - 'our arms fill with miracles', he writes in 'Go Places'.