The New Pornographers – ‘Continue as a Guest’ album review
Canadian indie dynasty The New Pornographers have returned with their new album, Continue as a Guest. The group’s ninth record, and the first on North Carolina indie label Merge, is a peach. It is mainly channelled by principal songwriter A.C. Newman coming to terms with his place in the world and a better understanding of the studio than ever. This means the band has produced a record you can revisit numerous times and still find new delights hidden within, from melodies to production. To briefly clarify, all their works are excellent, but this one is notably multifaceted.
It boasts a familiar cast of Neko Case, John Collins, Todd Fancey, Kathryn Calder and Joe Seiders. Alongside the usual crew, a songwriting credit goes to former member and Destroyer leader Dan Bejar and another to Sadie Dupuis. Even mentioning these names infers the quality of Continue as a Guest and the exciting variation contained, regardless of Newman being the principal songwriter.
One of the real triumphs of Continue as a Guest is that it marries polished pop flourishes with the angular proclivity of their early chapter, with their naturally expansive sensibility also tapped into. Resultingly, even the most surprising stylistic choices, from experimental instrumentation to new vocal flourishes, don’t feel out of place. At points, it is almost transcendental. Take ‘Pontius Pliate’s Home Movies’, for example; it has an almost krautrock essence, assisted by the bouncing bassline and tense brass. If you let it wash over you, this record can do things that most can’t. It’s a welcome surprise amidst a musical landscape brimming with acts trying too hard.
Demonstrating the kind of pulp that fuels Continue as a Guest, Newman used it as a conduit to process the implications of being in a band for so long. “The idea of continuing as a guest felt very apropos to the times,” he explains. “Feeling out of place in culture, in society, being in a band that has been around for so long—not feeling like a part of any zeitgeist, but happy to be separate and living your simple life, your long fade-out. Living in a secluded place in an isolated time, it felt like a positive form of acceptance: find your own little nowhere, find some space to fall apart, continue as a guest.”
Although aspects of the album stand out stylistically in the group’s oeuvre, Newman began work on it at his home in Woodstock, upstate New York, just after they had finished touring their last effort, 2019’s In the Morse Code of Brake Lights. “I found myself for the first time thinking that it was really time for me to learn how to become a home-recording guy—and I had all the time in the world to do it as well,” he said. “There was a lot of woodshedding. It was helpful to learn more about engineering and arranging. I still feel like a real novice at it, but I’m much better than I used to be.” It’s an interesting admission, as A.C. Newman’s improved production has seen the band create the album closest to the pure New Pornographers.
On tracks like the Bejar co-written opener ‘Really Really Light’, the idea of woodshedding becomes clear, from the refreshing creative decisions to the title, with Newman seemingly happy with his musical improvement and situation. The piece also has a feeling of unfettered glory, making it a fitting way to open. This sense is established through the consistent up-down strumming rhythm of the acoustic, shimmering keyboard arpeggios that drop in and out and the line, “My heart just like a feather/ really really light”.
This enforced time in his home studio – thanks mainly to the Covid-19 pandemic – also saw Newman examine his songs from untried angles, greatly benefiting his vocals. They are now more varied due to his newfound concentration on how he sings. For instance, ‘Really Really Light’, has an almost airy melody, whereas there’s a husky attitude to ‘Angelcover’. The vocal styles might separate these two songs significantly, but somehow they’re still necessary to the overall body of work. It’s masterstrokes like this that make you appreciate The New Pornographers greatly.
The title track, ‘Continue as a Guest’, opens as you’d expect a Destroyer piece to, but ironically Bejar is nowhere to be seen. A heady, filtered brass line blares out at the start, alerting us to the new creative space Newman and the band find themselves in. Then, the atmosphere ramps up dramatically. The saxophone and the arresting line, “I find a place out on the plains/ with some space to fall apart”, burst through the mix, creating tension before a rumbling, almost sludgy rhythm materialises and gets things moving. Headfirst into the band’s future, we go.
The brass, buried deep in the mix, comes to the fore again, heightening the suspense, with Newman, Case and the band singing in unison about continuing as guests and the “long fade out”. This is the group accepting that the world is much different from the one they burst into in the late 1990s—utter musical catharsis. Neko Case’s vocals are particularly stirring here. Her other highlight is ‘Marie and the Undersea’, another remarkably transcendental moment.
Whilst there are many moments of note on the record, such as ‘Bottle Episodes’ and the finale ‘Wish Automatic Suite’, a personal favourite is track four, ‘Last and Beautiful’. From the sliding, stoned rhythm and spacey keyboard to Newman’s almost syllabic vocals, it immediately plunges you into its crystal blue pool of cleansing. The song also boasts the album’s most piercing earworm. “I don’t wanna go by myself/ come with me”, the band sing.
It’s a stroke of genius in that, whilst vague, the situation sung about in the chorus is something we can all identify with, with the band’s joint vocals palliative – something they’ve always done adroitly. Again, coloured by a mix of reverb and delay-drenched textures, this record has a habit of capturing your attention on every repeated play. It is so infectious. It perfectly straddles the line between emotional and rousing.
We’re glad to have The New Pornographers back.
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