As I mentioned a few days ago, The New Pornographers have been slowly giving us more and more information about their new album, Challengers.

They’ve now given us a track off the CD, the cover and a tracklisting, though as I’ve previously mentioned I don’t see much point in pre releasing tracklistings before we’ve got the tracks. As for the album art I must say I’m a bit disappointed with. It just seems like something they’ve scribbled down whilst on the bus between gigs whilst stoned off their faces - I might be altogether wrong however, or it might grow on me - whatever its all about the music, is it not?

The tracklisting is:

01 My Rights Versus Yours
02 All the Old Showstoppers
03 Challengers
04 Myriad Harbour
05 All the Things That Go to Make Heaven and Earth
06 Failsafe
07 Unguided
08 Entering White Cecilia
09 Go Places
10 Mutiny, I Promise You
11 Adventures in Solitude
12 The Spirit of Giving

One of my favourite bands, The New Pornographers (really, they just do pop music - nothing dirty!) have released a taster of their forthcoming new album, the enticingly named “Challengers” that will hopefully be one of the records of the year, going by their progression through their previous three albums.

As a first taste of the album I must say that its good, however not anything that’s made me go “WOW!” It sounds a lot like AC Newman’s solo stuff, with less pop power, which to me is a shame - I did love the pop tastic moments of “Twin Cinema” such as “The Bleeding Heart Show” and “Sing Me Spanish Techno”, and going by this one track “Challengers” doesn’t have this pop momentum. However, I’m sure it’ll be just as good in other ways… they always are!

News comes via Stereogum

“My Rights versus Yours” is available to download here

Picture is taken from Presta’s flickr stream