The New Pornographers open their 10th album with an assessment of our potential near future, and the diagnosis is not good: “It’s quite a view from my deck chair/Sailor on this ship of doom.” It doesn’t get much sunnier from there. The zippiness that once propelled the indie-pop all-stars has given way over time to a sound that’s more layered and reflective, and on The Former Site Of they try to put on a brave face as they delve fully into the darkness. As a refrain on “Calligraphy,” the album’s grooviest track, goes, “God knows it’s Armageddon somewhere.” Over The New Pornographers’ nearly three decades in existence, they’ve transitioned from supergroup to largely the primary creative outlet of singer and guitarist Carl Newman, who wrote all the songs here. Sometimes he takes on the perspective of characters he creates (the aforementioned stranded cruise-ship passenger on “Great Princess Story,” a clergyman on the album’s title track who won’t abandon his church as the land around it is subsumed by water), sometimes he goes semi-autobiographical (choosing flowers for his parents’ graves on “Wish You Could See Me I’m Killing It”). He’s never sounded sadder, and it’s the best they’ve sounded in years.