(Matador/Remote Control)

Chasin’ the Dragon…

Carl Newman recently confessed in a Pitchfork interview that “Being well-liked is like a drug. After a while you just need to be well-liked to feel normal. So I’m just chasin’ the dragon.” Perhaps it’s telling he has chosen the path of pop songwriting – arguably not the initial vocational choice you would assume for those not of the fickle sycophantic-egoist mould … good thing Newman is actually an (in)credible weaver of tales; traditionally imbedded around his New Pornographers he proved with 2004’s The Slow Wonder that he can step out on is own. With startling results. So what then of Get Guilty? Essentially a collection of pop snippets, some tinged with his curious melancholia, others soaring impossibly high, foot stompy ruminations and warm-fuzzy inducing their crafted with the typical wry Newman-ism’s fans of The Porno’s have lapped up since 2001’s Mass Romantic. Delivered through a clearer prism this time, aided by producer Phil Palazzolo and abetted a crack chamber-pop band incorporating the Mates Of States pipes and Jon Wurster skins, Get Guilty sits comfortably between ballad-y introspection (The Heartbreak Rides, Young Atlantis) tunesmith musical avalanches (The Palace At 4am) and driving pop sing-along (Submarines Of Stockholm, Like A Hitman…). It’s kinetic, without being hyper – much like the man himself – and realizes something 2008 lacked: solo pop can be simultaneously gleeful and heart-string tugging … without getting lost in its own soupy myopia.

****

EMILY WILLIAMS

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