New Pornographers - Twin Cinema: Album Review

New Pornographers, Twin Cinema (Matador, 2005)
The New Pornographers are, from what I understand, a Canadian indie supergroup of sorts (like a Traveling Wilburys for the Internets fruit community) made up of seven members of various bands most people never heard of. In fact, this side project may be bigger than any of the members' actual groups. Anyway, this got a pretty good review over at Pitchfork, so who knows. They could be opening for U2 by the end of next week.

TWIN CINEMA

The album kicks off with some energetic, vaguely garage-sounding awesomeness. Was anybody in this group in Built to Spill? Somebody look into that.

THE BONES OF AN IDOL

Lead vocal duties are split between some guy and some chick. Fortunately, both of them are really good, otherwise we could've ended up with some kind of pre-Dizzy Up the Girl Goo Goo Dolls-type situation.

USE IT

The chick has a better voice than the guy, but the guy has an awesome singing style. He can bust out the white guy falsetto right up there with anyone. Also, the two of them combine to make some pretty sweet harmonies - this song being a particularly good example of that.

THE BLEEDING HEART SHOW

And I guess the other main attraction would be the songwriting. Being a group made up of roughly as many people as the Wu-Tang Clan, styles tend to vary wildly from song to song, but overall quality is very consistent throughout.

JACKIE, DRESSED IN COBRAS

I have no idea what this is about, but I especially like how the music builds to this big rawkus banging-on-the-piano moment about halfway through. Trust me, it's a lot more amusing when you can actually hear it.

THE JESSICA NUMBERS

Rawer than most of the rest of the shit on here. The White Stripes probably wouldn't be a good comparison, but then I've never been a good comparer.

THESE ARE THE FABLES

The one you're likely to see playing in the background of The OC, or whatever's big with the kids these days. I wouldn't know because I'm not a fruit like that.

SING ME SPANISH TECHNO

Probably my favorite song on here that the guy sings. It's got a sort of Crowded House thing going on but not really. The chorus is just excellent though.

FALLING THROUGH YOUR CLOTHES

This has some sort of weird Freddie Mercury/Boston multi-track thing going on in the chorus. I don't really like it as much.

BROKEN BEADS

This actually reminds me a bit of some of Ted Leo's shit if a bit more polished and Canadian. As is the case with most of these songs though, I have no idea what it's about.

THREE OR FOUR

Remember what I was saying about the guy being able to bust out the white guy falsetto with the best of them? This would be the perfect example of that. And actually, this goes back to what I was saying about the Ted Leo thing. This is how Ted Leo would sing if he wasn't like 60 or whatever.

STAR BODIES

The tiny drum kit intro calls to mind the Violent Femmes, which would've been cool, but then the rest of it kinda sounds like everything else on here.

STREETS OF FIRE

Which is why I'm glad they kinda switched things up here with the mostly acoustic sound. Good sequencing, people. And I like the way it fades out at the end, too.

STACKED CROOKED

It starts out kinda weird but then it ends well, so I'm kinda conflicted about it. It's probably best that they stuck it at the end.

COMMENTS: This was a surprise for me. I wasn't really checking for it at all when some kid mentioned it in the comments section yesterday. Now it's my shit. As far as I'm concerned, this eclipses Late Registration on every level other than tall Israeli-engineered hype. If you're a fan of music, pick this one up.

BEST TRACKS: Take your pick