Though I already named an album of the year, I also have a list of albums which I think are worth pointing out. It might reach 4 in total and they are in no particular order…
So I’m a big fan of the Weakerthans. And, I must admit, on first listen I wasn’t really that impressed with Reunion Tour. Then, while driving up to Vancouver for Canadian Thanksgiving I found myself listening to KEXP and the band showed up to do an in-studio session. The performance was top-shelf and John Samson had some really interesting things to say about the songwriting on the album. Sadly, for some insane reason, it’s the only KEXP performance I know of that isn’t available on their website. This, is a terrible shame.
In the interview Kevin Cole asked Samson about some of the odd topics that come up on the album. Samson explained that he wanted to challenge himself and only write songs from the perspective of another person. This explains the odd mix of topics and the first person narratives. There’s a song entitled Bigfoot came about when a friend of his was making a documentary about a man from Norway House, Manitoba who said he saw bigfoot and produced a blurry home recording of the event. The song points out how he was exploited by tv tabloids and ridiculed by the media and his friends while trying to comprehend a traumatic sight which he genuinely believes he saw.
There’s also a song about the story of David Reimer, a man who got a very raw deal in life and was profiled in just about every medical journal because of it: “and if they remember me at all, make them remember me as more than a queer experiment, more than a diagram in their quarterly”. The album even features the return of Virtue the run-away cat coming back home to explain why she ran away.
There really is something about the Weakerthans music that makes it truly satisfying. It’s like a solid meal that leaves you quite content once it’s finished. Several of the songs of the album have some great rock guitar riffs, drums which command me to bob my head, and build-ups which always seem to make the last minute of their songs so enjoyable. These include Civil Twilight, Tournament of Hearts, and Relative Surplus Value. There’s also a couple songs that feature some sweet keys and great harmonizing such as Sun in an Empty Room and Night Windows.
Again, you can sample the whole album off Amazon and even pick it up for 9 bucks on the mp3 store.