I Got You A Map To Find A Home In The Stars And I Hope You Get There: A Review Of Continue As A Guest By The New Pornographers

By Berlinda Recacho

"Who even are The New PORnoGRAPHers?”?" A friend demanded a couple of weeks ago, reading the name off a list. From her wild mispronunciation, she clearly had never heard of them before. I tried to hide my disbelief. Granted, the band's first album, Mass Romantic came out in 2000, the same year said friend was born, but given the wide availability of music these days, unfamiliarity is the narrow navigation of a vast ocean. The release of The New Pornographers' ninth LP, Continue as a Guest, gave me the perfect segue to my friend's existential question.

Twin Cinema (2005) was my introduction to the band and an enduring favorite; I bought the ticket to an amusement park of wild rides and ran with it, from the roller coaster thrills of "Sing Me Spanish Techno", to the wave-swinging "The Bleeding Heart Show", and the carousel nostalgia of "These Are The Fables". Like the two records that came before it, this earlier work was more direct, less diffuse. With time, their arrangements have broadened, picking up nuanced layers and more variable perspectives. Where once they might have run, charging through the entrance to break down the door, the evolution undergone through the last eight albums has altered the band's approach. In Continue as a Guest, the band are more likely to step to the side, as they do in the shape-shifting "Wish Automatic Suite" and implore you to "meet me in the mirror maze/tell me when you find your way out".

In the four years since The Morse Code of Brake Lights (2019), COVID-19 upended the recording of new material, inspiring creative problem-solving through virtual recording, retooling unreleased tracks and rescuing sketches from the cutting room floor. The gentle and undulating "Marie and the Undersea" unexpectedly swerves into an ode to surviving the global Pandemic. Music, as always, provides a beautiful diversion from the terrifying lyric imagery that fills in the blanks with the repressed memories of the last three years: "When the hospital ward starts to/feel like you're deep undersea/You keep pulling the line for/some more air, but it does/nothing/And where once you would see/all the faces, now it’s only eyes."

A.C. Newman has taken the lead as primary composer after the departure of Destroyer's Dan Bejar, who shares a co-writing credit on "Really Really Light". My boyfriend has become a new fan on the strength of that lead track/first single, charmed by how the band's trademark big production is balanced out by Kathryn Calder's lilting chorus: "We sit around and talk about the weather/My heart just like a feather/Really really light." Newman likes to play around with structure in the meaning of a song, especially how music and lyrics can contradict each other and ultimately subvert that meaning. The dance-y, menacing "Angelcover" may hold the key: "Melody, melody/Ain't got nothing at all on the/Delivery, delivery/And don't shoot the messenger/please".

"Pontius Pilate's Home Movies" is disturbing and irresistible not for what it tells you, but for what it omits and leaves to your imagination. The premise is absurd, which adds to the tension. Even if it wasn't Easter season, you can picture what indescribable horrors might be captured on that grainy Super-8: "Now you're clearing the room/just like Pontius Pilate/when he showed all his home movies/all of his friends/yelling: 'Pilate–too soon!'" I spent the greater part of a week, turning it around in my head. The phrasing is awkward, more like a poem, less singing than chanting, forging a path of "controlled demolition/the path through the mountain." A saxophone invoking classic jazz, or the Eighties, when practically every song had a sax solo, adds to the surreal experience. The haunting final lines remain unapologetic and enigmatic: "I got you a map to find a home in the stars/I hope you get there."

In "Cat and Mouse with the Light", a warped paean to the object of disaffection before a breakup, Neko Case tones down her powerful voice and still manages to knock you down with the delivery of a line, sighing in disgust, "Like I can't stand that you love me, you love me, you love me." The pretty tune is again hijacked by a cutting sentiment: I don't mean to be the last one standing/Only meant to be the next best thing/You're the last of my first mistakes left/And you can take that as a compliment." Newman takes the lead in "Last and Beautiful", trying to shirk off a commitment after a change of heart, but not wanting to go it alone. Again, the weird staccato phrasing makes the song more powerful: "It was done/I dotted all the I's/But one/My crowning mistake/in the arc/Of my dive/the last second look down... I don't wanna go by/myself/come with me". Verse/chorus/verse is eschewed in "Bottle Episodes", extending a sense of edgy anticipation -- "Shouldn't have to wait so long/for everything to make some sense, I say/But when you're dancing with the devil/You don't get to pick the song they play" -- and whittling down the refrain to a repetitive phrase.

In the philosophical thought experiment of the mythological ship of Theseus lies a paradox: if every piece -- plank, fitting, screw, mast, nail, sail -- is eventually replaced, is it still the same ship? In the case of this band, I say a resounding yes. The New Pornographers have been together for over two decades, maturing and weathering, losing and gaining members along the way; still, their core remains intact. They manage to celebrate their idiosyncratic tendencies while continuing to experiment and shift elements around. Nobody tells a story quite like The New Pornographers; In fact, Theseus' paradox sounds like something they would write a song about. There is no question what band created this odd and beguiling assortment. I've learned to look forward to the experience and expect the unexpected, like a sampler of chocolates missing the printed diagram explaining the center of each piece.

Continue as a Guest by The New Pornographers is out now via Merge Records.

[Photo: Merge Records]