The Weakerthans - "Reunion Tour"

The Weakerthans
Reunion Tour (Anti)
Grade: A

Download: The Weakerthans - "Tournament of Hearts"
Download: The Weakerthans - "Civil Twilight"

Winnepeg-natives The Weakerthans are playing an all ages show at the Triple Rock tonight, it is completely sold out however. So, in case you don't have tickets, go out immediately and buy their new album "Reunion Tour." Go on, I'll wait.

In the meantime, for those of you who do have tickets, I had the good fortune of catching up with Weakerthans bass player Greg Smith over the phone on Friday and caught some good information.

"We're totally loving the new record," Smith said. ("Me too," I said). "I think it turned out great and I think we’re all really like it ... We just wanted to put some good songs and stories down, we had no real sorta desire to create a very specific kind of album. We did it a lot quicker than we thought we would, we went in to do a few tunes and ended up doing the whole record. And that lends itself to how the record sounds."

"Reunion Tour" completely delivers after leaving us with such a great record in "Reconstruction Site," it is bigger, better and possesses that urgent quality that really brings me into the records I will enjoy for not only this week, but for years down the road.

Lyrically, the album continues John Samson's compelling story-telling with well-developed characters, which trace a thematic thread through the album.

"Most of these are character songs," Smith said. "John’s the lyricist, he's just developed this style over the years. He's developed these characters."

The album is pretty much wall-to-wall with jams, but "Civil Twilight" and "Tournament of Hearts" are currently my favorites.

Buy "Reunion Tour" from Amazon Here

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(Ian Anderson)