In December 2021, Matador Records celebrates the 21st anniversary of The New Pornographers’ debut record and breakout, Mass Romantic (2000), with a new reissue. The album – clocking three singers and twelve effervescent and undeniable power-pop gems – returns on colored vinyl LP complete with a bonus 7″ featuring the “Letter From An Occupant” single plus the two rare B-sides, “The End of Medicine” and “When I Was a Baby.”

Mass Romantic officially introduced the music world to legendary übergroup, The New Pornographers. Together, Blaine Thurier (“Low Self-Esteem Girl”), Carl Newman (Zumpano, Superconductor), Dan Bejar (Destroyer), John Collins (The Evaporators, Thee Goblins), and Kurt Dahle (Limblifter), along with Neko Case on selected lead and accompaniment, produced an epic, baroque masterpiece of such hyperbolic grandeur that if it were a painting, one would not be able to stop studying it lest a vital detail be overlooked. One of the catchiest, most joyous records of recent years, the collection is highlighted by such power-pop gems as “Letter From An Occupant” and “Slow Descent Into Alcoholism.”

“A striking power-pop album, forty staggeringly catchy minutes of four-part harmonies and Wall of Sound production, exploding with energy and joy; but the New Pornographers’ real secret is their arrangements: a stampeding legion of guitars, organs, hand claps, tambourines, and their idiosyncratic voices.” – Rolling Stone

“The New Pornographers mix the pop purism of the Beach Boys, the power charge of Cheap Trick and the gentle psychedelia of Syd Barrett.” – New York Times