The New Pornographers

If there’s one thing you can reliably judge by its cover, it’s porn. Until now. From the goat-adorned cover illustration (a campy, polite version of Big Black’s classic Songs About Fucking sleeve) to the suddenly urban-sounding Neko Case cameo, Vancouver’s The New Pornographers hamstring expectation.

The band’s name is borrowed from Jimmy Swaggart’s heartwarming children’s book, Music is the New Pornography, a truth shruggingly accepted by the group’s five full-time members. One of the undiscovered gems of fourth quarter 2000, Mass Romantic is neither too tart nor too sweet, but it sure ain’t Country Time. Instead, songwriters Carl Newman and Dan Bejar, veterans of big-in-Canada Canadian bands Zumpano and Destroyer, respectively, here perfect a pithy new-wave-by-way-of-garage-rock sound that’s still more vital than a mere throwback. The title song and “Letter From an Occupant” are only the most immediately hummable of the twelve songs, most of which insinuate themselves after just a couple of spins.

Bejar and Newman’s long rhythmic doses of Moog and organ do more to engender a sudden urge to hear the Cars than does Ric Ocasek’s entire career outside that band, though not at the expense of clever, melodic bass lines. Mass Romantic, though nurtured over sessions separated by as much as two years, is merrily spontaneous even at its most crafty. Newman and Bejar, with Kurt Dahle, are better than competent singers too. Case, though present infrequently, sheds her honeysuckle twang and all but disappears, belting out her numbers with the relish of a biker gang moll. She alone would be — and probably has been here in the States — reason enough to cop a feel of the New Pornographers. But in a welcome variation on the usual bait-and-switch, Mass Romantic would be a keeper even without her.