''Mass Romantic'' is the debut album by Canadian indie rock band The New Pornographers. Produced by David Carswell and band bassist John Collins, it was released on Mint Records in 2000. The album was three years in the making, with musicians A.C. Newman and Dan Bejar writing songs as early as 1998. With encouragement from peers, they recorded an album with other Canadian musicians from groups including Thee Evaporators, Zumpano, and Destroyer.

Released in 2000, the album failed to chart in Canada or the United States, but positive reviews from music media led to the group having a sold-out tour. Critical acclaim was very positive, and the album received a score of 87 from Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics. - Wikipedia

Originally released in Canada in 2000, the New Pornographers' terrific debut record never made it into wide distribution in the States. Matador, which signed the band, aims to rectify this, reissuing Mass Romantic for those who went straight to this year's Electric Version. Mass Romantic is a slightly better record, a perfect coalition of singer-songwriters Carl Newman, Neko Case and Dan Bejar that yields giddy rants like "The Slow Descent Into Alcoholism" and "Letter From an Occupant," both featuring dazzling harmonies by Newman and Case. Bejar's keyboard-driven "Jackie" shows off a more pointed wit and menacing brand of pop. And that's not all: almost every song brims with a nervous, palpable energy that the band distills into infectious melodic rock delivered with an artful punch.