The Modern Sunset

A.C. Newman @ Bowery Ballroom 3/15/2009

There Are Maybe Ten Or Twelve / Miracle Drug / Like A Hitman, Like A Dancer / Prophets / Secretarial / The Heartbreak Rides / The Cloud Prayer / The Palace At 4 A.M. / All Of My Days & All Of My Days Off / Young Atlantis / Drink To Me, Babe, Then / The Collected Works / Changeling (Get Guilty) / Submarines of Stockholm / On The Table // There Was A War [Leonard Cohen] / The Town Halo

Even when he’s touring in support of his solo material, Carl Newman can’t help but to put himself at the center of a large ensemble band. To a certain extent, this is just what is demanded of his material — even his relatively quiet material requires a richness of sound, and many of his songs are just better with the collective oomph of gang vocals. Even if it takes three female back up singers to come close to matching the power of Neko Case, the band assembled for this tour compare favorably to the New Pornographers, particularly when it comes to the drumming. Jon Wurster’s approach to drumming for Newman is not far off from Kurt Dahle’s work in the New Pornographers — brisk and powerful, but with plenty of nimble, detailed fills that mirror and emphasize the graceful melodic turns within the songs. Wurster’s style tends to fall into a tighter pocket, which provides a bit more negative space than Dahle, leaving the songs feeling a bit lighter and more open. This was particularly flattering for some of the more recent up-tempo numbers, such as “Changeling (Get Guilty),” “All Of My Days & All Of My Days Off,” and “The Palace At 4 A.M.,” all of which easily eclipsed the quality of the studio recordings.

A.C. Newman “The Heartbreak Rides”

Newman’s output in this decade has been so consistently strong that it can be easy to take his songwriting gifts for granted, especially as he becomes more focused on structure and nuance. Still, his taste for bombast comes through in even his quietest tunes, nearly always in the form of an emotional crescendo in the second half of a composition. “The Heartbreak Rides,” the loveliest song on Get Guilty, follows this pattern, gradually progressing from a gentle groove and gorgeous melody on the verses to an understated chorus, and eventually to a dramatic resolution that somehow does not feel incongruous or unearned.

Buy it from Matador Records.