Twenty-five years into a career built on densely packed pop hooks and lyrical ambiguity, The New Pornographers are still finding new ways to work. The Vancouver supergroup has announced The Former Site Of, their tenth studio album, arriving March 27 via Merge Records. The announcement comes with “Votive,” a new single that opens with atmospheric synths before expanding into a wide-open jam built around A.C. Newman’s mandolin. Michael Arthur’s animated video threads through the song’s imagery, looping back on Newman and Kathryn Calder’s refrain: “I didn’t see you there.”
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The album follows 2023’s Continue as a Guest, the band’s Merge debut, and finds Newman leaning harder into home studio work before bringing material to the full band. “Having time in my studio really opened things up,” he says. “I don’t like wasting my bandmates’ time, and always felt guilty when I’d give them a song, ask them to do something, then completely change the song and ask them to do it again. Now I can get the skeleton of a song together first, just a couple of elements, the key feeling, really as little as possible, before bringing it to the band and running from there.”
The core lineup remains Newman, Calder, Neko Case, John Collins, and Todd Fancey. This time they’re joined by session drummer Charley Drayton, whose CV includes work with Fiona Apple, The Rolling Stones, and Divinyls. Josh Wells of Destroyer and Black Mountain will handle drums on the spring tour, which kicks off April 22 in Boston with support from Will Sheff of Okkervil River. The run includes stops at New York’s Webster Hall, Chicago’s Metro, and Los Angeles’ Teragram Ballroom.
The Former Site Of collects ten tracks Newman describes as short stories about people at extremes, personal and otherwise. It follows “Ballad of the Last Payphone,” a slower, pedal steel-laced meditation that Paste called “less giddy power-pop, more slow-burn,” and a departure from the band’s typical rush of hooks. The full tracklist suggests more tonal range: “Spooky Action,” “Wish You Could See Me I’m Killing It,” and the title track all promise different shades of the group’s meticulously crafted pop.
The album is available for pre-order now, with exclusive vinyl variants through both Merge and the band’s webstore.
Tracklist:
- Great Princess Story
- Pure Sticker Shock
- Ballad of the Last Payphone
- Spooky Action
- Wish You Could See Me I’m Killing It
- Votive
- The Wine Remembers the Water
- Calligraphy
- Bonus Mai Tais
- The Former Site Of
Photo Courtesy of The New Pornographers
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