The New Pornographers - Together

Put bluntly, The New Pornographers copped a lot of shit for their last release, Challengers, their 'mellow' album with a tonality that somehow escaped their power-pop fan base. It was by no stretch a bad record; if anything it was merely bland and smaller than its predecessors: Mass Romantic, Electric Version and Twin Cinema, three independently brilliant albums that each served to better the last.

Perhaps to avoid a similar fate, they're come out all guns blazing with Together, embracing that all-in quality so valuable to their first records. Neko Case is at her heady finest in The Crash Years, an earthy acoustic number up on the perils of First World economic depression. The graduating riffs of My Shepard build perfectly with jolting drums and moody strings, while Dan Bejar's three song credits play nicely against main-man Newman's more complex tendencies.

From the first dirtied strings of Moves to the flowing, upbeat keys of Your Hands (Together) it has all the markings of great New Pornos: the seminal harmonies, the jaunty acoustics, the dramatic twee of naturally suburban pop. It is more daring, more developed and at the same time, more relaxed.

Most important of all though, after the somewhat lacking Challengers, Together remembers all that's truly great about this band: their ability to build and destroy entire structures before the first chorus and lift songs to entirely different places with gorgeous melodies and wildly beautiful arrangements. This is smart pop music, beautiful and quirky with foundations set in simple stone.