Twin Cinema

A new New Pornographers album is always greeted with ecstatic glee among the sort of record collecting geeks, indie-rock layabouts, and die-hard Wings fans that can be found whiling away their weekday afternoons flipping through the vinyl rack at their local hipster record store. But here’s what they won’t tell you about the Vancouver-based power-pop ensemble: Their albums aren’t that good. Make no mistake, this is a band overflowing with talent that writes some killer tunes. On their third album, said killers include the jagged piano jaunt, “Use It,” and “The Bleeding Heart Show,” a moody pop brooder pregnant with expectation that simply lights up when Neko Case’s voice rises above the clatter and leads the way toward a sunny coda. But there are also tunes like “Falling Through Your Clothes” that never rise above their well-appointed influences—in this case, the Kinks, the Moody Blues, and Big Star. The sparkling moments here easily make the mediocre ones bearable, but they never really tie Twin Cinema together into anything more than a hit-or-miss mix tape.