Of all the bands spawned by this century, The New Pornographers are among the very best. Two major songwriting talents (three, in fact, but Neko Case is just a performer here) in one band is a rare occurrence, and if you couple that with inventive arrangements and intense hooks, you get records as good as Mass Romantic and Twin Cinema. I would argue that the run from Mass Romantic (a five-star album if there ever was one) to Together is all gold. I would not say that it went wrong after that - it is just that starting with Brill Bruisers, and especially with the departure of Dan Bejar, the band has lost something. I cannot quite put my finger on what that is, exactly, but it is as if the melodies started to lose their substance.
It was not critical, and their subsequent albums still had plenty of classic tunes ("Champions Of Red Wine", "This Is The World Of The Theatre", "Falling Down The Stairs Of Your Smile"), but I could not quite do away with the sense of diminishing returns (same as Destroyer, if we are being honest here). Is Continue As A Guest a miraculous return to form? Hard to say - but this does feel like their strongest set of songs in more than a decade.
Continue As A Guest is a reinvention of sorts. It sounds different without giving you a clear idea of what has changed. Yet somehow there is more urgency to these songs, as if this time The New Pornographers and A.C. Newman in particular have a lot to say - both sonically and melodically. What is there about the Neko Case sung "Cat And Mouse With The Light" that makes it special, really? It should sound monotonous - but it feels like subtle magic instead, with that intricate and inventive arrangement riding along the downbeat groove.
The opening "Really Really Light" (co-written by Dan Bejar, no less) is a perfect tone-setter whose hooks do not quite reach the Mass Romantic heights but which do not sound laboured either. "Firework In The Snow" is a mellow pop song that could have been on Newman's underrated Shut Down The Streets, and "Last And Beautiful" and especially the single "Angelcover" are worthy of anything from their past catalogue. The lengthy and seemingly uneventful "Marie And The Undersea" should be a problem, but, again, it still has more ideas (both in its melody and in the instrumentation) than most bands could conjure over entire albums. Also, I am impressed by the epic "Wish Automatic Suite" that closes the album. A magnificent slow-burner that grows in intensity and climaxes with a two-minute coda whose restraint makes it all the more compelling.
As ever with AC Newman's songwriting - this album will keep growing on you with time, and on my second listen already I was discovering new depths and melodic nuances that make Continue As A Guest tower well above their latest output. Mind you, their fifth or sixth best is still an unmissable experience.
