Before I get into the particulars of this record, I feel like I should explain how I go about making face ratings.  I'm a pretty congenial guy, and when presented with a new recording, I'd like to think that I'm generally inclined toward liking it.  If your record doesn't offend me - if you just show up - you automatically get 2.5 faces.  The best example I can think of is the Radar Bros. album from last year.  Yeah, exactly: inoffensive yet unspectacular.  If you do something that pisses me off (Band of Horses, I'm looking at you), then you may get lower than that.  Three faces is for an album that is generally unremarkable, but has some good moments.  If I like - but don't love - the entire record, it's three and a half faces for you.  Four faces for an album that's excellent throughout, with maybe one or two minor blips, and four and a half or five faces for truly top notch albums that not only contain excellent songs, but also hang together to form a cohesive album.

All of this brings me to why I've given Carl "A.C." Newman's new album three faces.  Mr. Newman is a member of the New Pornographers (there are those who say he is the most important such member).  I have thoroughly enjoyed previous New Pornographer records, but haven't been familar with Carl Newman's solo work.  He has one previous solo project from 2004, called "Slow Wonder", which I've never heard.  However, upon listening to "Get Guilty" I was immediately struck with how much influence he brings to the New Pornographers records.  So, you'd think I would love "Get Guilty" since surely it sounds just like a Pornographers' record... but I don't because it doesn't.  It lacks the variety of "Twin Cinema" and "Challengers", though it does have some excellent songs.  I particularly enjoy "Like a Hitman, Like a Dancer" and the opening track "There are Maybe Ten or Twelve."  There are a few other good tracks as well, including "The Collected Works" and "All of my Days and All of My Days Off."  In addition, Mr. Newman is quite the lyricist.  Witness these lines from the opening track:

There are maybe ten or twelve things I could teach you.

After that, well, you're on your own.

And that wasn't the opening line - it was the tenth or the twelfth.

Make of that what you will.

My main issue with the album is that all the songs start to sound the same after awhile.  Carl's got a formula - staccato guitar riffs and pounding piano chords - and he doesn't deviate from it much.  It's not that it's a bad formula, except for the fact that it makes his songs sound, well, formulaic.  A little more variety would have been nice.  Download the tracks I mentioned above.  If you love them, think about getting the rest of the album, but don't say I didn't warn you.

Despite the occasional moments of brilliance, I am unoffended yet under whelmed by the majority of this album.  Three faces it is!