Comparisons are generally invidious, but they're oh so tempting, and when a band is following up a four album opening streak in which every record has been at least extremely good and two (Electric Version and Twin Cinema) are candidates for greatness, then expectation alone forces the comparison to what has come before, and so:
Quality-wise, Together is probably about on a par with the relative dip that was Challengers - it certainly doesn't get anywhere near the heights of the Electric Version/Twin Cinema one-two. There's more ornamentation and more jangle, less in the way of surging, full-tilt, sugar-rush highs (which are, after all the best thing about past New Pornographers albums). The best songs here come at the start - namely "Crash Years" and sort-of title track "Your Hands (Together)" (the stomping "A Bite Out Of My Bed", near the end, is also neat), but even they don't have the glorious abandon of past record highlights, and there are just too many indistinct, undistinguished tracks on Together that don't really go anywhere...so, good, but, at least judged against the very high standards they've set for themselves, this is a bit of a disappointment.
