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All Music Guide Review:
Review by Tim Sendra [-]
If the Clean were motivated by anything other than a seemingly pure love of music, Mister Pop would have been a very different album. Since the last time the band made a record, scores of new bands have discovered the awesome early work the Clean recorded back in the '80s and have incorporated the raw, scratchy, and energetic feel of those records into their sound. The group could have easily tried to capitalize on its newfound icon status and made an album that harked back to its early years. No one would have blamed them for cashing in; nobody would have begrudged them a few minutes of near fame. Instead, the band -- still the brothers Kilgour (David and Hamish) and Robert Scott -- have made a laid-back, hazy, and thickly psychedelic album that sounds more like something the band might have made in the '90s. This is not a bad thing at all, because while not as influential, they made very good albums during that era. The songs on Mister Pop range from dreamy pop ("Are You Really on Drugs?") to instrumental motorik jams ("Moonjumper") to folky meditations ("All Those Notes") and back to strummy pop ("Back in the Day"). It also contains at least two songs that would make it on a mythical Best of the Clean LP: "In the Dream Life U Need a Rubber Soul," a slice of modern pop so heavenly and sweet that it should be sent to Jeff Lynne as a lesson on how to make modern pop without over-sweetening; and the driving Krautrocker "Tensile," which features some nice vocodered vocals and a little bit of the texture of their early records. Apart from these standout tracks, it's a solid album that shows off the individual members' songwriting skills and holds together very well as a display of smart and savvy modern pop. If you're looking for the old Clean, you might be disappointed, but if you are looking for good Clean, Mister Pop will be just what you need.
Pitchfork - 7.3
— Stuart Berman, September 11, 2009
Ah, the Clean-- the Halley's Comet of indie-rock, appearing after prolonged absences in a flash of brilliance, only to disappear just as quickly and practically be forgotten about. But if the New Zealand trio's output has been notoriously sporadic over their 32-year lifespan, their releases have been fortuitously timed to capitalize on their unyielding influence: After a brief string of legend-making singles in the early 1980s, the band's relatively prolific 1990-96 run coincided with the ascendance of Clean acolytes Pavement and Yo La Tengo; their last release, 2001's Getaway, dovetailed with the Strokes and the Shins' back-to-basics ethos; while the new Mister Pop-- only their fifth full-length release-- arrives at a time when a new generation of lo-fidelity all-stars (Jay Reatard, Bradford Cox, Crystal Stilts, Love Is All) is displaying a voracious appetite for Kiwi pop.
But the Clean have always exuded a casual grace that suggests they'd still be making the same records even if no one was listening, employing the same set of devices-- ramshackle locomotive rhythms, buoyant basslines, swirling organ lines, and wide-smile melodies-- irrespective of prevailing fashions, technological developments, or geopolitical unrest. And yet, the Clean's periodic resurgences serve as a reminder that, in a world of uncertainty, there are still some things you can rely on.
Despite the eight-year layoff since Getaway, Mister Pop effectively picks up right where we left off, with a pair of warm-up exercises-- the metronomic organ-grinding jam "Loog" and the possibly self-referential dream-pop ditty "Are You Really on Drugs?"-- that feel like vapor-trail echoes of its predecessor's distended, psychedelic haze. Even in light of the Clean's lo-fi legacy, the tracks feel demo-grade, built on single ideas that, while lasting only three minutes each, still feel run into the ground, begging the question of whether eight years was actually long enough for the song reservoir to replenish itself again. But such quibbles are cast aside 30 seconds into "In the Dreamlife You Need a Rubber Soul", a headlight-bright jangle-pop pleaser (possibly about the new Beatles reissues?) that boasts all the hallmarks of classic Clean. On another track, David Kilgour makes an even more explicit reinforcement of Mister Pop's return-to-form intent: over a paisley-toned, mod-rock swing, he repeats, "It puts me right back in the day."
And so Mister Pop stays the course for the rest of its relatively compact 10-song, 34-minute length, reshaping the Clean's core components into poignant bossa nova instrumentals ("Simple Fix"), propulsive Krautrock-outs ("Tensile") and, as only they can, bizarro fuzz-organ jigs that resemble White Light/White Heat-era Velvets auditioning for "Riverdance" ("Moonjumper"). But whenever Mister Pop threatens to drift off, it's grounded by an ace-in-the-hole strummer like "Factory Man", a Go-Betweens-worthy working-class-hero portrait that, rather than comment on the blue-collar life from an artist's distance, sees a kinship. "He's a factory man/ And I'm no better than he 'cause I'm a factory man, too," Kilgour concludes. And after all these years, the Clean's assembly-line craftsmanship is as well-oiled as ever.
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