The New Pornographers - Brill Bruisers

The New Pornographers

Brill Bruisers

26 August 2014

Last Gang/Matador

 

3.5 stars out of 5

 

 

While it’s doubtful that The New Pornographer’s sixth LP was written under conditions similar to those at the song factory at 1619 Broadway—better known as the Brill Building, where many of the biggest pop hits of the ‘40s, ‘50s, and ‘60s were written by armies of songwriters, each in their own tiny cubicle—it’s undeniable that Brill Bruisers is a pop record full of nostalgia. The Vancouver-based supergroup has barely deviated a millimetre or two from the path they charted with their debut back in 2000; Brill Bruisers is a reasonable hand-drawn facsimile of Mass Romantic, though it arrives fourteen years later in a musical universe that is about as interested in sugary-sweet pop harmonies as it is in the other forgotten phenomena of the last year of the last century (yes, that means 2000, not 1999, you math-impaired freaks), such as the twenty-fucking-five live albums released by Pearl Jam that year.

 

Are you a long-time fan of The New Pornographers? If you answered “yes,” then stop reading this review and go listen to Brill Bruises. It’s exactly what you want to hear because A.C. Newman & Co. haven’t changed a thing. If you answered “no,” then don’t bother to check it out, because A.C. Newman & Co. haven’t changed a thing. If you’ve never heard of the band before, I assume that you’ve never actually listened to music. No worries, because if you turn on any college radio station for an hour or two at any point in the next three or four months, you’re going to hear at least one or two songs from Brill Bruises during that session. Guaranteed.

 

reviewed by Richard Krueger