Twin Cinema

After a long, unintentional break away from writing, I am back to write about some more music. Today’s entry comes from the band the New Pornographers, a sort-of super group out of Vancouver, Canada. The New Pornographers are comprised of several fantastic singer-songwriters, including Dan Bejar (also the founder of Destroyer), Neko Case (who has had a strong solo career parallel to her work with the band), and A.C. Newman (himself a solo artist). Combined, they have put together some strong records and some not-so-strong records, but in every case their work together has meant strong harmonies along with witty lyrics and some interesting music.

Their record Twin Cinema was well received after its issuance in 2005. The record contains 15 songs and numerous supporting musicians along with the original members.

#171 – The New Pornographers, Twin Cinema (Metascore = 85)

Twin Cinema begins with the dynamic guitar riff of the title track. “Twin Cinema” is a cool pop rock song that demonstrates some of the vocal harmonies (between Newman and Case) and musicianship characteristic of this band. “The Bones of an Idol” continues the poppiness, mixing in jangling piano with slide guitar while also giving Case the opportunity to take lead vocals. She has a soft but strong voice that seems to bring more out of the song.

The element of this album and the band is the wide range of vocals working in harmony with each other. Regardless of the lead singer, the mixture of the voices gives each song a hint of campfire song to it, where anyone can join in. Most of the songs are sung either by Newman or Case, but each song always has someone else backing up the lead. Sometimes the lyrics are a little insane (see “Jackie, Dressed in Cobras”), but many times they reference love in some sort of way. Of all of the vocalists, Neko Case’s vocals are the best.

Musically, each song is different. They incorporate stops into their songs (particularly Bejar’s songs). There are catchy riffs that you will find yourself humming (“Twin Cinema”, “Jessica Numbers”). The musicians mix up the instruments between straight up guitars to adding jangling pianos and organs. The songwriters also effectively incorporate crescendos to sing-song choruses and balance the poppy numbers with quieter songs.

Overall, I really enjoyed this record. I liked a lot of the songs and really enjoyed the vocals. The songs themselves were well-crafted and easy to like. My personal favorites were “Twin Cinema”, “Use It”, “Broken Beads”, and “Three or Four”. In some ways I cannot understand why critics didn’t like it more, but that could be due to the lyrics or something else. Either way, this is a great record to hear.