The New Pornographers promised us a celebration. Their Fun Fun Fun set Saturday gave us one. It wasn’t a raucous, collegiate fete. More like the kind your once-crazy friends throw past their party prime.
Leading up to the release of Brill Bruisers, frontman Carl Newman said the Vancouver collective’s sixth album would be a jubilant affair. The eightpiece supergroup gave that to Austin packaged with the kind of tightness only delivered while in the throes of a major tour. It’s a polish New Pornographers fans have come to expect, and the band executes without any of the loose ends.
From the first notes of the opening title track, the group’s harmonies sounded more like a programmed instrument than a collection of voices. Likewise, guitar hammer “Myriad Harbours” demonstrated an even cleaner reworking of the 2007 Pornographers classic. “Testament to Youth in Verse” founds its clipped surf rock stripped by an almost barbershop quartet breakdown, then rebuilt to a rolling anthem.
New songs “War on the East Coast” and “Champions of Red Wine” rounded out the set, an easy balance of New Pornographers standards and new material. Brill Building bruisers? No question.
Check out our complete Fun Fun Fun Fest coverage.
This article appears in November 7 • 2014.