At Some Point It’s All Uncharted Waters

The New Pornographers “Votive”

Back in 2007 it felt like a big swerve when The New Pornographers’ fourth album Challengers was about 55% ballads. Up to that point, the band specialized in up-tempo bops. I saw shows early in their career which ended with a third of the audience dancing on stage with them. Even with a few notable ballads on Twin Cinema, the Challengers record came as a surprise. But in retrospect this seems crazy. There wasn’t that much of a change between the third and fourth record, and the shift towards variation in texture and tone was an inevitability as the band transitioned from supergroup project to ongoing band.

It’s almost 20 years later, and The New Pornographers have changed again. The Former Site Of, their tenth album, is pretty much bop-free. The tone is icier, the mood is fairly somber, and according to Carl Newman, the lyrics are interconnected song cycle that culminates in the the title track. (I’m taking his word on that–even with this narrative intention, his writing is as oblique as it’s ever been.)

The New Pornographers used to be one of Canada’s crop of too-many-people-on-stage bands, but they’ve shed some members in recent years. Kurt Dahle and Dan Bejar both departed after the group’s masterpiece Brill Bruisers in 2014, vestigial keyboard player Blaine Thurier bounced not long after, and the less is said about the ejection of their disgraced post-Dahle drummer, the better. The band’s been boiled down to essential personal: Carl Newman as sole songwriter and primary vocalist, Neko Case on vocals, Kathryn Calder on keyboards and harmony vocals, Todd Fancey on guitar, and John Collins on bass. Collins used to be more active as a producer, but that’s fallen by the wayside a bit as they’ve moved towards a mostly-remote recording process.

It’s not surprising that Newman would move towards slower, more atmospheric songs as The New Pornographers have become more of a recording project. And it’s not as though they need more rockers, since they’re already locked into a dozen or so of those that they always play live. But beyond matters of practicality and logic, it just sounds like this is where Newman is as a person. He sounds pessimistic and uncertain. There’s a sense of loss that permeates the new material, but not necessarily in the sense of literal mourning. It’s more like a frustration of knowing something is gone, but not quite knowing what it is or how it went away.

The opening verse of “Votive” genuinely bums me out:

My hands are cupped around a match
I’m just trying to keep the lights on
But a lighthouse should not be
In league with the rocks
Though at some point it’s all
Uncharted waters

I suppose I hear people sing more upsetting things all the time, but this degree of weariness gets under my skin. I listen to this and wonder, am I headed towards seeing everything as futile? Is it futile to resist a pull towards this feeling?

Buy it from Bandcamp.