Disgraced God-botherer Jimmy Swaggert once denounced rock and roll as "the new pornography". According to Wikipedeia the founder of ace Canadian indie-popsters The New Pornographers wasn't thinking about this when he named his band. Whatever. All I know is that I saw them last night and they are a GREAT GREAT band! I'd heard a few of their songs before but I came out of the gig a total convert, their live show kicks a whole lot of ass and this was one of the best concerts I've seen for years.


There's hundreds of them in the band and together they make a great sound, quite different to any band I can think of coming out of the UK right now. I wonder if this is something to do with their line up: 1 guy and 2 women seem to share the vocal duties. When one of those women is the fantastic Neko Case then you've got a lot of vocals to play with. Maybe my mind has gone blank but I can't think of many bands at the moment that have male and female singers. Arcade Fire do it, Belle and Sebastian (a bit) but I'm starting to think it's an underused acoustic device. Any other suggestions?

I really loved their range of songs too. They totally rock out on the fast songs (iTunes fans try "Use It") but can be touchingly fragile on the down tempo songs (try "Adventures in Solitude") and luckily they didn't seem to have the mystical self-importance of those other Canadian indie-darlings, Arcade Fire. Not only that but in keyboard player and singer Kathryn Calder they've got an indie-pop pixie every bit as delicious as Isobel Campbell or Rachel out of Slowdive (am I showing my age here?). What, as the great Mark Radcliffe would say, is not to like?