Reunion Tour

We Say...

Review by Matthew Fritch

Words and music. Taken in that order, it’s a disastrous recipe for some of the most overwrought rock, precious folk and gutless hip-hop. The Weakerthans are none of these things, despite their bookish reputation and the carefully considered lyrics of singer/guitarist John K. Samson. The Winnipeg band built its fanbase on the insistent, joyous guitar hooks of songs such as “Watermark” and “Aside” from 2000’s Left And Leaving (the latter scored the end credits to Wedding Crashers). They've never lost the blueprints for assembling pogo-worthy pop/punk — even as pedal-steel guitar and horns crept into the mix on 2003’s Reconstruction Site, even as Samson penned a song on that album from the perspective of his cat; the Weakerthans have a populist way of incorporating their clever conceits.

Reunion Tour, the quartet’s first album in four years, would have you believe it’s business as usual — at least for the record’s first half. “Civil Twilight” and “Tournament of Hearts” are punched up with the effortless energy that used to pour from bands like Superchunk and Superdrag, and only later do you clue into Samson’s narratives. The former song concerns a bus driver whose route passes his ex’s house, while the latter uses the sport of curling as a metaphor for romantic near-misses. But then the mid-album spoken-word-and-banjo track “Elegy for Gump Worsley” provides a beatnik caesura for Reunion Tour's more somber second half. The relaxed Mellotron groove of “Sun in an Empty Room” and the crisply sentimental “Night Windows” are as magically comforting as anything on R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People, and Samson again proves to be a sympathetic storyteller on “Bigfoot!,” a character sketch of a guy who endures ridicule after spotting Sasquatch. Though the back end of Reunion Tour hits a slower stride, there’s pay-off in closer “Utilities”: “Guess our wishes don’t do dishes or brake repairs/ Make them something somebody can use,” sings Samson, for the first time from his own perspective rather than inhabiting a character. This sober contemplation is, of course, topped off with an anthemic, eyes-heavenward guitar solo.

This final paragraph is for the lyrics-booklet readers, conspiracy theorists and other assorted rummagers: Hello, and huddle up. First off, Virtute the cat from Reconstruction Site is back — or, rather, she was here and then she left. You’ll see. “Tournament of Hearts” is not only the best song ever written about curling, but its title is a reference to an album by the Weakerthans’ friends and tourmates the Constantines. “Sun in an Empty Room” and “Night Windows” are also the titles of paintings by Edward Hopper. You should look at them. In a roundabout way, Great White — the hair-metal band involved in the 2003 nightclub tragedy in Rhode Island — inspired the song “Reunion Tour.”

You’re still here? The review is over. Go home. Go.