New Pornographers / Electric Version (Matador)

I enjoyed the New Pornographer's debut disc, but not nearly as much as 
everyone else seemed to. For me, their second album delivers on all the 
promises made of the first one. There's not a weak tune here - it's an 
album full of songs ready to be put on mix discs, which is the highest 
praise I can give a record.

The album is loaded with energetic pop gems with a new wave flair and 
top drawer vocals. While not deviating much from a basic sound, each 
song offers a new twist or nuance, including cartoony oooh ooohs, peppy 
keyboard melodies, and a riff that sounds like XTC's "Day In Day Out" 
run through the Brian Wilson convertor. This album just screams SUMMER 
and should be right at home in any event in the sun.

I love Neko Case's vocals, but I think she was over celebrated last time 
and detracted deserved attention from rest of the band. Her vocals are 
even stronger this round, but the whole band ratchets up the quality and 
everything seems to fall in place effortlessly. This reminds me of how 
Wilco's Summerteeth just blew away since I was never a huge fan of 
theirs before, and it ended up topping my year end list. This is a 2003 
Top 5 contender, and if it doesn't make my list, this will truly be a 
great year for music (and based on my recent packages from Not Lame, 
Parasol, and InterPunk - it's shaping up to be a good (and expensive!) 
year for music despite the slow start).

Sleep Cheap
Dale