The Weakerthans - Reunion Tour

Being an indie listener, scoundrel and semi-music snob, I’ve always tried to find bands and sounds that identify the dynamic of the confused, the bereft and the penultimate confusion of this Youthful Canadian Independent Music generation. After a first listening to The Weakerthans first major release (following the self-released Fallow) Left And Leaving in 2000, I was hooked into the introspective appeal of John K. Samson’s writing style. Everything from the oddly detailed, stream of consciousness lyrics of “Everything Must Go” to the chunky, distorted guitar picking on “Aside” to the hypnotic glow and soothing tones of “My Favourite Chords” told me that The Weakerthans were going to be a force to be reckoned with; they were going to be making music the way they wanted to for quite some time.

Today, that notion I had in my head proves to be true as 2007 marks their fifth full-length album. On Reunion Tour, we see Samson, Tait, Carroll and Smith hammering away at similar themes (that usually feature their “not so fond” native city of Winnipeg and its “average-Joe” inhabitants) but in the framing of a different structure. Boasting their most ambient sound to date, guitarist Stephen Carroll told Uptown magazine this album features “lots of ambient stuff, tape loops, and some more keyboard than before”. The experimentation bodes heavy from the opening, swirling guitarish-keyboard loop of the first track and single from the album, “Civil Twilight.”

The Weakerthans, though, are not only about a certain guitar sound or eclectic instrumentation (although they are known for transforming odd household items into instruments later recorded on to songs) as Samson’s ever-intelligent lyricism shows an amazing grasp of the English language. Samson has been known to create characters whom appear and re-appear in and out his songs like faces in a recurring dream. This can be seen in the track “Ballad of a Cat Named Virtue” on the 2003 album Reconstruction Site that relays the mind-ramblings of a shut-in house cat who seeks to find ways to help her depressed human master. And wouldn’t you know it - the curious cat actually re-appears, in true Samson style, on Reunion Tour on the song “Virtue the Cat Explains Her Departure.”

Though the album has been dubbed thus far by many ‘zines as “forgettable” or “more of the same,” I think it would be unwise to label it as such without dissecting the raw simplicity and staying power of a band like The Weakerthans. Most indie musicians and acts of today have a hard enough time getting a gig on a Monday night. Amazingly enough though, after not releasing anything for four years, Samson somehow keeps the fan base of The Weakerthans satisfied. His songs always poke at a brooding darkness of the human condition but always with the faintest hint of hope and his band does an incredible job of crafting hooks and bridges around his writings. Yes - the themes are similar and sometimes you think you’ve heard the songs on a previous album - but ultimately, the listeners and true fans of acts like The Weakerthans are willing to wait because they know the substance of the creation will be that much greater.