Ever since Chuck Berry motorvated over the hill in “Maybellene,” cars have been a shorthand for freedom in rock’n’roll. The New Pornographers flip this axiom on its head on their eighth album, In the Morse Code of Brake Lights, where all sense of liberation is undercut by a suspicion that whoever is behind the wheel may be headed toward danger.
A sense of doom lurks at the heart of Brake Lights, providing connective tissue between its 11 barbed songs and darkening the album’s sunniest moments. As the work of a collective determined to keep classic guitar-pop alive by slyly twisting and expanding the form, Brake Lights has no shortage of colorful melodies, yet the hooks rarely feel bright, certainly not when compared to the incandescent rush of 2017’s Whiteout Conditions.
Such a shift in tone is deliberate, a reflection of changes within the New Pornographers as well as the culture at large. Always the group’s unofficial leader, A.C. Newman now stands as its lone songwriter and producer. Busy with family obligations, bassist John Collins decided not to share production duties with Newman this time around, while the mercurial Dan Bejar opted to sit out, save a lyric or two. Bejar’s absence has the inevitable side effect of straightening out the group’s sound, but the bigger change on Brake Lights lies in the New Pornographers’ retreat from the bombast of 2014’s Brill Bruisers and the percolating Krautrock rhythms and New Wave sheen of Whiteout Conditions. Stripped of such excesses, the band seems harder and tougher than they have in a while, maybe since the days of Twin Cinema.
A lot has changed since 2005, not the least being a global political lurch toward the right. Newman appears to address the turmoil of Trump’s America throughout Brake Lights: The narrator of “Colossus of Rhodes” sorts through the wreckage of a break-in but still believes in salvation; “Higher Beam” laments that “deep in the culture of fear, we all hate living here”; references to dead malls and cold wars are rampant. Despite these charged phrases, it’s difficult to discern any distinct political position in these songs, because Newman resists concrete narratives. Words pile upon each other, slowing down just enough to allow a certain line to linger; it’s as if he’s writing puzzles to counteract the force of his melodies.
Perhaps Newman’s lyrics are elusive, but enough images catch hold to create a lasting impression. In the Morse Code of Brake Lights feels emotionally direct in a way that’s foreign to New Pornographers, the result of Newman stripping the group down to its foundation and then building back up with the assistance of the string quartet Strength of Materials. When the guitar amps are cranked, it sometimes can be difficult to distinguish the sawing strings from analog synthesizers, but that only emphasizes how densely saturated the album is. The songs are propelled by a giant backbeat and sustained by soaring melodies, but they’re surrounded by a cavalcade of echoing harmonies, carnivalesque keyboards and, on occasion, a ripe guitar riff.
At the center of all the tumult is A.C. Newman and Neko Case, the pair who have wound up as the New Pornographers’ joint frontpeople. By now, their complementary styles are familiar—Case channels her passion with melodramatic flair, Newman is her wry, plaintive tonic—but far from tired. Each vocalist wrings out the confusion, desperation, and fear of the album’s darkest moments, adding shape and meaning to songs designed not to expose their secrets so easily. Case, in particular, has a knack for transforming elliptical tunes into urgent drama—in her hands, “Colossus of Rhodes” plays like an anthem—but Newman lends vulnerability to the delicate strains of “You Won’t Need Those Where You’re Going.” Still, what pulls the album into focus is their vocal interplay. Case and Newman trade lines, finish each other’s thoughts, reveal the unspoken meanings of the songs; they’re old friends who find sustenance in each other’s presence. The essential humanity at the heart of this relationship offsets the dread that flows throughout In the Morse Code of Brake Lights, and gently leads the record toward something resembling hope.
Buy: Rough Trade
