Whenever I hear the drum intro to the Beastie Boys' 'Rhymin' and Stealin'', I don't wonder if it's all about mutiny on the bounty, or if Adrock is gonna board my ship and turn it on out. I wonder if it keeps on raining, will the levee break? Whenever 'Let Forever Be' by the Chemical Brothers starts playing, it never crosses my mind to wonder what it feels like to wake up in the sun, or shine on everyone. I generally just wonder if turning off my mind, relaxing, and floating down stream is not dying.

And whenever I hear the similarly familiar drum intro to 'Miracle Drug', the lead track off A.C. Newman's solo album debut, "The Slow Wonder", I'm not slow to wonder if Mickey's been around all night, and if that's a little long. I wonder if he thinks he's got the right, but know that he's got it wrong. I wonder why he can't say goodnight, or even take me home. I wonder if Mickey's so fine he'll blow my mind.

Opening drumbeats, and the memories they bring up, are powerful things. I wonder if Newman knows that. And if he does, I wonder if he's intentionally making me think of Toni Basil, because he knows full well that I'm probably already thinking of the New Pornographers.

Previously known as Carl Newman, during his stints with Zumpano and the Pornos, the songwriter now goes by the cryptic A.C. Newman (not so cryptic, to anyone who's read this article [http://www.chartattack.com/DAMN/2004/03/3104.cfm] and seen the accompanying picture -- and been in Dis's comment section lately; the "A" obviously stand for "Argyle"). Which is not to say that he's had to create a whole new persona, and release a solo album, to get all the songs out of his system that don't fit into the New Pornographers's aesthetic.

Because "The Slow Wonder", despite its power-pop deficiency, is really just a New Pornographers record without the ethereal wail of Neko Case, and the mounds and mounds of overdriven guitars. Not to say that I'm a New Pornographers aficionado (nor am I even a fan, really), but I do miss those things. "The Slow Wonder" doesn't burst out from blown speakers, nor does it read like a letter to an occupant. I guess the real thing that it's missing, the thing that defines the best of the Pornos, is tangible hooks.

Actually, that's not fair. "The Slow Wonder" has enough hooks to keep a curmudgeonly fisherman happy. You just have to go looking for them. It's the kind of album that you have to listen to over and over (and over) in order to appreciate. I'm just not sure that it's worth the effort, or the frustration.

Newman's thesis statement, if a power pop record could be said to have such a thing, is hidden in 'Most of Us Prizefighters'. "But who of us here wants to look back," he sleepily asks, "just to realize / That most of us prizefighters will fall for fashion?" It sounds like Carl is worried about the kinds of compromises strong-hearted artists have to make, in order to achieve popular success, in order to overcome "the curse of the crowded room, one we have all been to." And he's doing it over a groove of sluggish tremolo guitar licks and plodding drums. In order to walk this line, he's come up with an ingenious plan: write songs that are merely variations on the template he came up with in the Pornos. The problem is that some of the songs are Porno-lite, some are Porno-slow, while only a select few are full-grown Porno-descendants.

In the first group is the aforementioned 'Miracle Drug', wherein the titular pharmaceutical can either get you past the pain of having your novel rejected ("a great lost novel that, I understand, was returned with a stamp"), or end your time working a dead-end job for dead-end pay. A nifty idea, surrounded by a thrifty song. I can feel its hot breath, like a dragon ready to wail. But the arrangement never unleashes the fire. 'Town Halo' suffers from this same fate. It features a ponderous cello riff to anchor its verses, only leaving the song alone to breathe during the emphatic chorus. Too little too late, though.

In the second category, we have the songs that make the album's title truth in advertising. 'Secretarial' may have some gorgeous long melody lines (the longest and lushest of the whole album), but it needs a kick in the pants; the damn thing never gets moving. For a song with such an urgent message, this is most confounding. It wonders if we are just placeholders here, on this planet. Are we just secretaries, taking notes and making coffee until "you blew across the water after racing through the countdown / Spewing ancient wisdom like your friends the revelations had come / And they were looking for me"? The Armageddon-through-the-eyes-of-one-man conceit may be navel-gazing, but it's surprisingly effective. Especially when he realizes that there's really no use fighting the inevitable, mainly because humanity is armed with mere popguns. "Can't take them out with baby artillery," Carl notes.

'Better Than Most' could also use a quicker click track. Still in trying-to-save-the-world mode, Newman's narrator has spent the night wandering through the plains, "pointing pistols at the dawn". Later, he wishes "this was a crowded room," ignoring the lesson learned in 'Most of Us are Prizefighters'. He's like an ineffectual gunman, in an Old West that never existed. Except for the fact that the song sounds like a melancholy dirge, as if Carl recruited a marching band made up of mournful narcoleptic dwarves. Then, for some reason, it tries to shoehorn a major key melody in through the door left open in the chorus. Though it somehow works, it's not nearly enough to save the song.

The best of the neo-Pornographers material is 'On the Table', an upbeat ditty featuring spiky guitars, and some choice background vocals from Neko Case stand-in Sarah Wheeler. Ms. Wheeler never gets to step out front and belt one out, but her work here compliments Carl's near-falsetto voice just fine. It helps provide an indication of what this album could have been (i.e. " Electric Version").

Not content to just ape his old band, Carl mines the vast neighbourhood of pop music for other choice bricks, with which he can build his own house of songs. 'Drink To Me, Babe, Then' sounds like a melody and backing arrangement that Aimee Mann might have rejected during the "Bachelor No. 2" sessions. Which is not a bad thing, since sounding like Aimee Mann is better than sounding like most people. The problem is that the song contains some harsh melodian and whistle call-and-response in the instrumental bridge, that's supposed to sound mournful but winds up sounding Saturday Morning Cartoon-y. 'Battle for Straight Time' doesn't fare better. Its chorus has the same exploding guitar sound as Elastica's 'Connection', which would be fine if I had fond memories of Elastica. Also, it points to a previously unseen lack of confidence in Newman's ability as a hookmeister. He repeats the chorus' mantra ("Battle for [boom! boom!] straight time") so often, methinks the songwriter doth protest too much. Picture Courtney Love shouting her hooks over and over, hoping that they'll eventually stick in your brain. Instead, they turn into ranting. Dave Grohl, on the other hand, actually paid attention in Kurt Cobain's songwriting class. His hooks stand on their own, even when he isn't repeating them over and over.

I point to this if only because Newman does so himself. Witness the unsure footing of 'Prizefighters'. And further witness the sonic – and symbolic – crashes that Newman disperses throughout the record.

One comes at the beginning of 'Cloud Prayer', which I'm picking as the album's choicest cut, at least until someone (probably a butcher) tells me otherwise. Before the music ever comes in, a thunderclap of percussion hits the ears. Is it a timpani, or did Newman sign up Mother Nature for a session in the studio? Coupled with a light hi-hat jiggle, it forms a well-hidden groove that anchors the rest of the song. Which also features more tight harmonies with Wheeler – doing yeomen's work underlining the sadness – and a superbly arranged trumpet solo in the bridge.

Most notably is the story found in the lyric. As best as I can guess, it's about a secret agent, going on dangerous missions for his demanding lover. The rub? He can't ever tell her about the missions, and can't get the credit he deserves. "You don't think there was payment due? I blew up in the sky for you. Anyone who saw it knew." While we once again find Carl aching for recognition, even though he, as an indie pop icon, can't really strive for it, we also have an example of the deft storytelling and narrative pyrotechnics that most of these songs indulge in. And when I say indulge, I mean "explore every last nook and cranny". Newman is often too obscure for his own good (half of the songs here I can't make heads or tails of). But when he keeps things simple, the power of his lyrics more than makes up for the powerlessness of his pop.

The second symbolic (and authentic) crash comes at the beginning of the helpfully-titled 'Come Crash'. It's a quieter crash this time, as if the song knows it doesn't have to beat you over the head with apocalyptic soundscapes. At least not an apocalyptic soundscape that will frighten young children.

It's built around a Tom Waits-ian arrangement, that sounds like the end of the world just happened, and all we have left for instrumentation are old trash can lids, an out of tune piano, and the beeps and boops of a slowly-dying computer. It's a song that has come to a pretty morbid conclusion: surviving a dastardly car crash is probably easier than surviving a dastardly houseguest, crashing on your floor. Physical injuries will heal, with time. Social injuries, however, linger.

The album's closing track, '35 In The Shade', begins with another familiar drum intro. Only this one I can't place. It's kind of 'Wipeout'-y, without really being so. It's got a bit of Green Day's 'Longview', but doesn't ever indulge in masturbation imagery. It's Newman, come into Newman's own. And he ends it with a reprise of the ominous crash from 'Come Crash'. Only this time it doesn't indicate a coming apocalypse. It gives the listener hope that the next Carl Newman (or A.C. Newman, or "Argyle" Carl Newman) album will be something not-Pornographers, not-"The Slow Wonder", but a healthy mixture of the two. With hooks strong enough to beat Peter Pan.

Recommended: Yes