Here's an early review of the new album:
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Weakerthans head to new places on Reunion Tour
By DARRYL STERDAN -- Sun Media
The Weakerthans
Reunion Tour
(Anti-Epitaph)
When is a reunion tour not a reunion tour? When it's The Weakerthans' Reunion Tour.
For one thing, it can't be a reunion because the band never split up. For another, it's not a live album, it's the fourth studio disc from the beloved Winnipeg indie-rockers. And finally, it's not the soulless, self-serving cash-grab of your typical reunion tour.
Rather, this 11-track set is another stellar offering that captures the next stage in the band's creative evolution. Taking leave from the high-concept unity of 2003's Reconstruction Site, singer-songwriter and guitarist John K. Samson offers tunes inspired by everything from Edward Hopper paintings and the dot-com bust to Gump Worsley and the Great White club fire. Despite their diverse origins, however, these bittersweet odes to lovelorn curlers, brokenhearted bus drivers and runaway kitties are united by Samson's articulate prose, emotional honesty and understated whimsy -- qualities that have established him as the most gifted Winnipeg songwriter since Neil Young.
The rest of the Weakers -- guitarist Stephen Carroll, drummer Jason Tait and new bassist Greg Smith -- prove the perfect musical foils for Samson and his literary lyrics. Threepeating with producer Ian Blurton, the musicians seem to have a greater hand in the proceedings. And they stretch their sonic wings accordingly, employing more keyboards and horns while experimenting with ambient electronics, loops and effects. Most impressive? They do so without sacrificing the human interaction and immediacy of their sound. For all its deliberate craftsmanship, this is a living, breathing work of a functioning rock band.
If only all reunion tours were so satisfying.
Civil Twilight 3:18
Squelchy synth-like guitar pulses preface the main event, reminding us of an old Who number. What better setting for a song about a transit driver? But this isn't Magic Bus; this gently surging and serrated midtempo rocker is a typically Samsonian tragedy about a busman whose route swings by his ex-lover's house every other hour -- including the titular (and romantically metaphorical) hour between sunset and certified darkness. Too much.
Hymn of the Medical Oddity 3:08
Fingerpicked guitars that fall somewhere between folk and classical gently glimmer over a lazy beat. A wobbly keyboard adds melancholy counterpoint to unsettling images of doctors, hospitals and wintry isolation.
Relative Surplus Value 2:38
The disc's hardest, fastest rocker is anchored by a pumping Lust for Life beat, topped with guitars that throb and vibrate like Johnny Marr. The lyrics -- about a businessman racing to a board meeting, only to find out his stock has tanked -- are an analogy for the dot-com boom. Call it the Weakers' answer to Takin' Care of Business.
Tournament of Hearts 3:35
On their last album, Samson treated us to last call at the Elks Lodge. Here, he moves to the lounge at the curling rink, hoisting a few brown ones in this lightly chugging pop-rock charmer. The tale -- yep, another romantic metaphor -- is Samson at his most whimsical: "Why can't I ever stop where I want to stay? ... I'm always throwing hack-weight." Can't wait for the video.
Virtute the Cat Explains her Departure 4:09
The pussycat protagonist from Reconstruction Site comes back to tell us why she ran away. Built around a lazy brushed-snare beat, plaintive electric piano and guitars that evolve from shimmery waves to Morse code, it's a remarkably tender track -- and the only ballad you're likely to hear that features the word 'kibble.'
Elegy for Gump Worsley 2:43
This hockey-homage soundscape starts off with Tait plunking a backwoods banjo line amid rootsy flourishes from acoustic guitars and slide. Samson waxes poetic with a stream-of-consciousness monologue on the legendary goalie's life.
Sun in an Empty Room 4:00
One of two tunes inspired by Hopper paintings, this sweetly smooth pop number has a lightly funky groove and slightly slinky, ringing guitars. Lyrics about a low-income couple moving out of their welfare apartment conspire with an indelible chorus and a hummable keyboard solo to make this one of the most commercial songs in the band's repertoire.
Night Windows 4:36
The second Hopper tune is set to a click-clack tick-tock rhythm and chiming guitars -- a musical metaphor for the passage of time. It's a fine foundation for Samson's intimate vocal about a lovelorn guy who finds himself lost in romantic reverie while glancing at his ex's window. Pretty as a painting all on its own.
Bigfoot! 2:23
More folksy acoustic guitars -- that fittingly creak and squeak like footsteps on Arctic snow and ice -- swirl with tinkly synth flakes and stately northern-light horns. Together, they create a stark, windswept dreamscape that suits this tale of a tundra buggy driver who may or may not have a friend named Sasquatch. His explanation: "The visions that I see believe in me."
Reunion Tour 2:08
Over a sluggish martial-snare pattern and whistling tones, Samson recites a litany of life on the endless road -- from the syncopated boom-boom-boom of tumbling roadcases to shiny truckstop food. "I lost the chiming ring of keys to everything safe and safely locked away back home," he sings, expressing a touring musician's disconnection from domestic reality. So much for sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll.
Utilities 4:35
The boys take it home with a gorgeous, forlorn country waltz flecked with percolating organ and weeping steel guitar lines. The slow-burning harmonized solo reminds us a bit of The Hold Steady -- but self-deprecating lines like "Got more faults than the state of California, and the heart is a badly built bridge" are pure Samson. "Make this something somebody can use," he says in closing. It already is.
