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The Onion (A.V. Club)

If previous New Pornographers albums are the musical equivalent of Jolt Cola, Challengers is the caffeine-free diet version: less sugary, more mature, initially not as invigorating, but ultimately just as addictive.

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PopMatters

More cinematic than "Twin Cinema," more cohesive than any other record released this year, Challengers is so very good it almost compels you to think in the cliches of music criticism.

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Lost At Sea

Challengers stacks up against the pillar of "Twin Cinema" just fine; it is the more restrained of the two, equally as satisfying, and more stylistically varied.

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MSN Consumer Guide (Robert Christgau)

Still a band that improves everyone in it, and more forthcoming this time, though they really ought to risk despoiling their precious graphics with lyrics.

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Los Angeles Times

Newman's weakness for melancholy melody washes over everything on the Canadian confab's fourth album.

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Magnet

While longtime fans may lament the paucity of instamatic anthems, 'All The Old Showstoppers' and 'Unguided' reveal their charms with each new verse. [Fall 2007, p.106]

Paste Magazine

It's a nuanced, artfully constructed record that gets better with each listen and crawls its way out of any box you might choose to put it in.

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Hartford Courant

Challengers live up to a certain essential challenge: They’re catchy enough to spend long periods stuck in your head.

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Mojo

Challengers ultimately proves to be the group's finest hour. [Sep 2007, p.112]

Billboard

Challengers won't surprise anyone familiar with the New Pornographers' prior work, but it still manages to be refreshing and exultant.

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All Music Guide

Challengers is their biggest grower yet, a dense collection of carefully constructed pop and brain power pop.

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Blender

Where melodies once surged with hand-clapping giddiness, they're now august and restrained, balladic, not bubbly--fitting songs strung between hope, resignation and regret.

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Slant Magazine

If not instantly gratifying enough to rank as The New Pornographers' best album, Challengers is still their most diverse collection, one that speaks to the real breadth of its core members' skill with all manners of pop styles and that proves that they're capable of producing more than just guilty pleasures.

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Q Magazine

Challengers, their fourth album, sees the band and its three main songwriters at the top of their game. [Sep 2007, p.99]

New Musical Express

Their fourth album is a staggering masterclass in indie-pop songwriting that will make your brain melt and send firecrackers around your heart.

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Filter

This record might be a challenge for fans of the band’s hit-filled history and at times drifts dangerously close to the dreaded adult contemporary of your local Gap store, but give Challengers some growing time and it proves to be the New Pornos’ prettiest record yet.

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Alternative Press

What Challengers lack in immediacy, it makes up for brain-teasing melodies and majestic orchestrations. [Oct 2007, p.162]

Village Voice

The Pornographers work better when they move quicker and don't overthink.

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Spin

The melodic sense of Newman and cowriter Dan Bejar keep things from stalling out. [Sep. 2007, p.136]

Under The Radar

Challengers loses some of the old bluster, but it feels life-sized in the best possible sense. [Summer 2007, p.76]

Drowned In Sound

While no one can argue that it’s not an accomplished and distinguished collection of songs, the doubts still remain--albeit fainter than before--as to why one would choose this collective over at least half-a-dozen similar-sounding yet ultimately superior bands.

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Prefix Magazine

Truthfully, after the first four songs, there's nothing about Challengers that isn't an evolutionary step forward for the band, making the sequencing even more nonsensical.

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Tiny Mix Tapes

The New Pornographers are straying away from the niche they’ve carved out for themselves, and they’re doing it with skill and calm. And perhaps that should be celebrated, because Challengers is everything this sort of smooth transition ought to be.

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Stylus Magazine

Challengers certainly gets tastier after you’ve chewed on it for a bit.

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Entertainment Weekly

Despite a few joyful diversions kike 'Myrid Harbour,' you're left with the feeling that this sluggish band of Pornographers isn't quite up to its latest challenge. [24 Aug 2007, p.133]

Pitchfork

Challengers tracks end with uncharacteristic whimpers instead of bangs.

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Rolling Stone

Challengers, the Vancouver group's fourth album, is slower and more thoughtful, but mostly it keeps up the hook-pumped, harmony-chocked power pop modestly tricked out with strings and keyboards.

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The Guardian

Aside from Neko Case's wonderful title track (a gorgeous tale of two people falling for each other when they shouldn't), these songs about hearts going too far and the promise of mutiny sound preppy and studied when they should be full of fire and hot blood.

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NOW Magazine

What's immediately striking about Challengers is the unabashed mellowness of it all.

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PopMatters

The problem with Challengers, however, is not its decelerated speed--it’s that the songs aren’t uniformly strong.

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Dusted Magazine

It is perfectly pleasant, mildly intelligent pop, perhaps a cut above the vast majority of songs with "la la la" choruses. Yet it has none of the elegant non sequitur of Bejar's best work, nor the barbed hookiness of Newman's, nor even the sheer musical sensuality of Case on her own

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Austin Chronicle

A.C. Newman is a brilliant singer-songwriter, and his work here shows no diminishment. Challengers' glass jaw, then, is its sluggish instrumentation, its boots filled with lead while the lyrics and vocals--especially Ms. Neko Case's--strain to pick up the pace.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 8.6 (out of 10) based on 61 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Warren W. gave it a6:
Where Mass Romantic and Twin Cinema succeed, Challengers fails. The aforementioned certainly are poppier, and that isn't the problem with this album, it's that they don't really have anything new to say, the choruses are repetitive to the point of boredom and while it is slower and darker, it's just old hat at this point. Not bad, just not up to the standards they've already set for themselves.

RLB gave it a9:
The best Pornographers yet. Neko adds immeasurably, as always. Great, great songwriting. Very original, edgy, and flat out rocking!

Chris E gave it a9:
Really a great album that is a grower but does not take that long to grow on you. I totally agree that those who gave it a low score did not give it much of a chance. There are at least 9 or 10 really solid tracks o here and some like "Adventures in Solitude", "Challengers", "My Rights versus Yours", "All the Showtoppers", "All the Things that Go to Make Heaven and Earth", "Go Places", and "Myriad Harbour" will be on my favorites play list for quite some time. A must have for anyone who likes pop music.

Eric S gave it a10:
My favorite album of the past few years. As mentioned before, it takes a few listens, but the rewards are substantial. This is a great group and this is my favorite effort of theirs.

Justin gave it a9:
Yes, my first impression of this album was lukewarm, but with nearly a month of repeated listens, I now find this album engaging, gentle, and, more than anything, tremendous. "Adventures in Solitude" is one of the best songs the band has ever recorded. Both "Myriad Harbour" and "Mutiny, I Promise You" deserve permanent places in their live show, and "Challengers" feels like the Scorpions meets classic Fleetwood Mac. Once again, the critics speak too soon on an album.

J Max gave it an8:
This is a great album, but it will take you a while to really "get it". Best tracks are "All the Old Showstoppers", "Unguided", "Challengers", and "Adventures in Solitude"...this a more mature album full of songs about regret and sadness. It's probably not as good as "Twin Cinema" ("Sing Me Spanish Techno" was the best song of last year, with "These Are the Fables" not far behind") but it's a much different kind of album. I think that this will be one of those albums that people will go back and listen to in 15 years and realize its brilliance. If you need instant gratification, this is not for you, but it's an incredibly deep album that needs to be listened to for a while to truly appreciate it. "All the Old Showstoppers" will be in your head for months, and expect to hear "My Rights vs. Yours" a LOT, especially in a politcally-charged climate.

Jason L. gave it a9:
Note to critics: it helps to listen to an album properly before reviewing it. Not that we care, we know this is a great album.

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