The Weakerthans: Reunion Tour
The Weakerthans release their fourth album
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Tuesday, 23, Oct 2007 02:14
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In a nutshell...
Whimsical. Thoughtful. Cutesy. Indie. Kitschy.
What's it all about?
In their highly anticipated follow-up album to their successful 2003 release Reconstruction Site, The Weakerthans have again teamed up with producer Ian Burton to launch their fourth album, dubbed Reunion Tour, to be released in late October.
While it does have some decent tracks, such as Civil Twilight and Sun in an Empty Room, the 11 tracks on the album have not come very far from Reconstruction Site, despite it being four years in the making. If anything, the album exchanges the unique, junkyard-indie character of RS, as in My Favorite Chords, for increased pop sensibility and accessibility.
To be perfectly honest, you'd probably be better off listening to a Built to Spill or Death Cab for Cutie album than sitting through this random collection of cutesy and mundane story-tellings.
Who's it by
In Reunion Tour, former Propaghandi punk-rock bassist turned indie-rock frontman, John K Samson, along with with Winnipeg buddies Jason Tait (drums, percussion), Stephen Carroll (rhythm), and Greg Smith (bass), draw on a variety of influences to produce a generic post-punk, indie sound. The vocals, in particular, are uninteresting and executed with exceedingly awkward and uncomfortable phrasing. To be sure, the thoughtful lyrics on Reunion Tour are insightful and well informed, but there are so many unconnected, cutesy metaphors and personifications about the weather, the time of day, etc... that one gets the feeling that Samson is simply trying too hard to be impressive and clever. The rest of the band performs better.
As an example...
"There's a sink full of bottles and cutlery and the car/has got a list of complaints/I just wish I were a toothbrush/or a solder gun... " - Utilities
"The shiny food we found with gasoline/the daily prayers of set-lists tender jokes about/ retards and crashes and queers... " - Reunion Tour
Likelihood of a trip to the Grammys
34.36243 per cent (it was a tough calculation, but I managed). Although possible because it will appeal to the angst of teenage girls and boys, if this makes it to the Grammys I will be very disappointed.
What the others say
"By the end of the record, these people seem at the end of their rope, begging some benevolent force to help them out..." -PopMatters
"Reunion Tour further cements the Weakerthans' status as legitmate rock 'n' roll tastemakers."
-Alternative Press
So is it any good?
Throughout the record, Samson takes on the familiar whine and kitschy subject matter most often attributed to Ben Gibbard of the Postal Service/Death Cab for Cutie (as in Relative Surplus Value or Virtue the Cat). They risk becoming an echo of this type of music. No matter what the tempo or dynamic of the song is, Samson's voice, while familiar, tends to remain generally unchanged and unresponsive to changes in the dynamic and feel of the song, as though sung by an indie-lyric producing robot - no feeling, or at least, very little.
Furthermore, many of the songs are cluttered with lists of nostalgic images of trinkets, photos, and things that are supposed to seem poignant and meaningful, but, in the end, they don't add much to the overall meaning of the songs. Take for example Virtue the Cat Explains Her Departure - a song about all the cute things cats do (like purring and kneading into your chest while you sleep). How nice. How... cute. But it doesn't have much to say outside of that - "cute". Utilities is another striking example where Samson expresses his desire to become various inanimate objects ("I just wish I were a toothbrush... ") because he believes he would be more useful that way. Maybe he's right. In the end, Samson sounds bored, sad, and frustrated rather than insightful and poetic.
The redeeming qualities of the album are that the instrumentation is quite solid and catchy with some reliable choruses. Also, Samson's collection of stories is, at least, not entirely self-absorbed. But, the Weakerthans simply aren't adding much that is new to a genre that already seems to wearing itself thin. Reunion Tour sounds like Built to Spill mashed together with Death Cab for Cutie (emphasis on the Cutie), but with the volume and feeling turned down about 5 notches - sort of like 'smooth jazz', but for indie.
6.5/10
Spencer Thanhouser