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If previous New Pornographers albums are the musical equivalent of Jolt Cola, Challengers is the caffeine-free diet version: less sugary, more mature, initially not as invigorating, but ultimately just as addictive.
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More cinematic than "Twin Cinema," more cohesive than any other record released this year, Challengers is so very good it almost compels you to think in the cliches of music criticism.
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Challengers stacks up against the pillar of "Twin Cinema" just fine; it is the more restrained of the two, equally as satisfying, and more stylistically varied.
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Still a band that improves everyone in it, and more forthcoming this time, though they really ought to risk despoiling their precious graphics with lyrics.
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Q MagazineChallengers, their fourth album, sees the band and its three main songwriters at the top of their game. [Sep 2007, p.99]
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Their fourth album is a staggering masterclass in indie-pop songwriting that will make your brain melt and send firecrackers around your heart.
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If not instantly gratifying enough to rank as The New Pornographers' best album, Challengers is still their most diverse collection, one that speaks to the real breadth of its core members' skill with all manners of pop styles and that proves that they're capable of producing more than just guilty pleasures.
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Challengers is their biggest grower yet, a dense collection of carefully constructed pop and brain power pop.
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Where melodies once surged with hand-clapping giddiness, they're now august and restrained, balladic, not bubbly--fitting songs strung between hope, resignation and regret.
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Challengers live up to a certain essential challenge: They’re catchy enough to spend long periods stuck in your head.
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MojoChallengers ultimately proves to be the group's finest hour. [Sep 2007, p.112]
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Challengers won't surprise anyone familiar with the New Pornographers' prior work, but it still manages to be refreshing and exultant.
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It's a nuanced, artfully constructed record that gets better with each listen and crawls its way out of any box you might choose to put it in.
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Newman's weakness for melancholy melody washes over everything on the Canadian confab's fourth album.
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MagnetWhile longtime fans may lament the paucity of instamatic anthems, 'All The Old Showstoppers' and 'Unguided' reveal their charms with each new verse. [Fall 2007, p.106]
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This record might be a challenge for fans of the band’s hit-filled history and at times drifts dangerously close to the dreaded adult contemporary of your local Gap store, but give Challengers some growing time and it proves to be the New Pornos’ prettiest record yet.
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Under The RadarChallengers loses some of the old bluster, but it feels life-sized in the best possible sense. [Summer 2007, p.76]
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While no one can argue that it’s not an accomplished and distinguished collection of songs, the doubts still remain--albeit fainter than before--as to why one would choose this collective over at least half-a-dozen similar-sounding yet ultimately superior bands.
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Truthfully, after the first four songs, there's nothing about Challengers that isn't an evolutionary step forward for the band, making the sequencing even more nonsensical.
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The New Pornographers are straying away from the niche they’ve carved out for themselves, and they’re doing it with skill and calm. And perhaps that should be celebrated, because Challengers is everything this sort of smooth transition ought to be.
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The Pornographers work better when they move quicker and don't overthink.
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SpinThe melodic sense of Newman and cowriter Dan Bejar keep things from stalling out. [Sep. 2007, p.136]
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Alternative PressWhat Challengers lack in immediacy, it makes up for brain-teasing melodies and majestic orchestrations. [Oct 2007, p.162]
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Entertainment WeeklyDespite a few joyful diversions kike 'Myrid Harbour,' you're left with the feeling that this sluggish band of Pornographers isn't quite up to its latest challenge. [24 Aug 2007, p.133]
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Challengers certainly gets tastier after you’ve chewed on it for a bit.
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Challengers, the Vancouver group's fourth album, is slower and more thoughtful, but mostly it keeps up the hook-pumped, harmony-chocked power pop modestly tricked out with strings and keyboards.
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Challengers tracks end with uncharacteristic whimpers instead of bangs.
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Aside from Neko Case's wonderful title track (a gorgeous tale of two people falling for each other when they shouldn't), these songs about hearts going too far and the promise of mutiny sound preppy and studied when they should be full of fire and hot blood.
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What's immediately striking about Challengers is the unabashed mellowness of it all.
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It is perfectly pleasant, mildly intelligent pop, perhaps a cut above the vast majority of songs with "la la la" choruses. Yet it has none of the elegant non sequitur of Bejar's best work, nor the barbed hookiness of Newman's, nor even the sheer musical sensuality of Case on her own
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The problem with Challengers, however, is not its decelerated speed--it’s that the songs aren’t uniformly strong.
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A.C. Newman is a brilliant singer-songwriter, and his work here shows no diminishment. Challengers' glass jaw, then, is its sluggish instrumentation, its boots filled with lead while the lyrics and vocals--especially Ms. Neko Case's--strain to pick up the pace.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 71 out of 77
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Mixed: 4 out of 77
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Negative: 2 out of 77
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EricSOct 11, 2007
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DC.Sep 1, 2007
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Mar 6, 2012