"Eh."

This is hardly the response one would expect to elicit from a New Pornographers single. But when Matador leaked "My Rights Versus Yours" a few months back, most here in the CMG camp were surprisingly nonplussed. We expected it to bang à la first tastes like "Twin Cinema" and "The Laws Have Changed," and instead it was a shuffle that, while undeniably pleasant, lacked our anticipated oom-pah-pah. It was even more surprising to learn that "Rights" was to be Challengers' lead off track. Repeated listens did in fact reveal the power-pop hooks and full band harmonies that we'd rightfully expect, but "eh" seemed to work.

And so goes the remainder of Challengers, an album that does indeed contain a number of the glorious pop spasms and group vocal invention that this band made their name on, but the presence of such is far subtler than anything before, contained in an uncharacteristically sedate set of tunes that demands repeated, attentive listens, and above all else, patience; I really can't stress enough that this album is incapable of revealing its full potential after two or three listens, that attentive listening is necessitated in the nature of the band itself. This is because Challengers is the first New Pornographers record to offer little in the way of instant gratification -- if you weren't ready to die for this band within thirty seconds of your first listen of "Letter From an Occupant" then your heart is dark indeed -- and seldom performs in the ways that we had become accustomed to.

Take, for example, its sequencing: "My Rights" is a reasonably peppy opener, and "All the Old Showstoppers" features the workmanlike chug and gradual build of celebrated #2's like "From Blown Speakers" and "The Fake Headlines." So you totally envision "Challengers" blowing your face off because 1) it's the title track and 2) the 3-hole in every New Pornos record is a guaranteed adrenaline shot. But "Challengers" ends up being a Neko Case-led torch song, albeit one with rich "o-lah" vocal counterpoints and a barely noticeable banjo atop acoustic guitar; easily one of the album's finest tracks, if hardly as immediate as say, "Use It." That go-to hook, that immediate one, in the album's first fifteen minutes actually comes courtesy of Dan Bejar's NYC tribute "Myriad Habour," something not unlike using your utility infielder to bat clean-up.

But it's "Challengers" that sets the template for the majority of the album, wistful and noticeably slower, with organic production values that shun the keyboard sugar-buzz of earlier efforts in favor of a string section and woodwinds. In fact, "All The Things That Go To Make Heaven and Earth," the one song that does sound exactly like New Pornographers, Ltd., has to be the album's weakest track, a rewrite of "Only Divine Right" that feels tossed off, an olive branch extended to those fearful of change who think this band is incapable of operating at slower tempos.

Actually, that's not entirely fair -- "Bones of an Idol" and "These Are the Fables" were both played at ballad speed, but still garnered much love from the peeps due to their major in-song pay-offs (the drum entrance in the latter.OMG). What ultimately keeps Challengers out of the desert island echelon of New Pornographers albums is not that most of the songs are slow, but that they often fail to fully peak despite several memorable bits. It would be easy to point the finger at Carl Newman's six-minute "Unguided," but that cut is probably Challengers' highlight, showcasing two near-perfect choruses and an off-kilter drive that justifies its seemingly excessive length. More problematic is go nowhere filler like "Failsafe," and though I hesitate to complain too much about anything that Neko Case is given to sing, both the title track and "Go Places" could have benefited from more significant climaxes, even with lovely arrangements to highlight a newfound string section.

Or maybe the most glaring omission from our list of expectations is that Challengers simply lacks the one "Occupant"/"Spanish Techno"/ "Wordpower" barnburner that renders a New Pornographers live show such a joyous celebration, though "Unguided" comes close in an unconventional way. Challengers doesn't even begin to approach catastrophe, but some of the fairy dust is noticeably absent this time out. Or, to paraphrase my old college roommate and New Pornos superfan, "Challengers is 'very good' by any objective standard, and yet somehow still a little disappointing because it's the New Goddamn Pornographers. I guess you can't expect to blow minds every time."