This week's feature: The Weakerthans

The Weakerthans, Reunion Tour (Anti-)

WHO

John K. Samson & co. return from Winnipeg and Toronto for their fourth album of lit-rock.

DISCOGRAPHY
Fallow (G-7 Welcoming Committee, 1997)
Left and Leaving (G-7 Welcoming Committee, 2000)
Reconstruction Site (Epitaph, 2003)
Reunion Tour (Anti-, 2007)

IN A NUTSHELL

Reunion Tour may seem like it took an eternity to come out, but it should be enough for Weakerthans fans to forgive the four-year wait.

THE STORY

For reasons I'm still not totally clear on myself, I decided to make Reunion Tour my first-ever digital purchase. The Weakerthans are one of my favourite bands of all time, so the prospect of getting their newest album immediately upon its release, rather than waiting a few hours and going all the way to a CD store to get a physical copy, seemed like a good idea at the time. The fact Reunion Tour was also the first album I've ever downloaded pre-release simply because I couldn't wait for the real thing to come probably had something to do with it.

The problem with my logic, as anyone who's ever enjoyed the band could probably understand, is that half the joy of a new Weakerthans album is having the liner notes, and poring over them while listening. Even if the band has been around for a decade and all four members probably contribute equally, they've always -- to me, at least -- seemed like a vehicle for frontman John K. Samson's words. So to listen to the album without being able to read along with the liner notes made the experience feel a little off (and no, e-lyrics just don't cut it).

This is a shame, because Reunion Tour otherwise fits perfectly into the cozy little universe The Weakerthans have created for themselves and their fanbase over the last ten years. Even if their recorded output during that time is about as far from prolific as you can get, they've still shown that they know how to develop and expand on themes and ideas (as is befitting someone of Samson's literary background). The Elks Lodge from "Psalm For An Elks Lodge Last Call" (off Reconstruction Site), for example, seems like it would fit in right next door to the curling rink Samson sings about here, on "Tournament of Hearts". Similarly, the medical theme that ran throughout the band's last album makes a return here, on "Hymn of the Medical Oddity", while closing track "Utilities" has been bouncing around online since Left And Leaving. In fact, you don't even need to make those vague thematic connections if you're looking for links -- the titular cat from last album's "Plea From A Cat Named Virtue" returns on "Virtue The Cat Explains Her Departure".

In addition to bringing The Weakerthans' most recent two albums together, this last song also captures what makes the band so thoroughly enjoyable: it's the way Samson is able to give life and character to even the smallest characters. You can infer that the depression Virtue's owner was suffering from on Reconstruction Site didn't get any better, causing Virtue to take off for parts (or at least trees and alleyways) unknown. The way that Samson makes that seem totally believable, singing lines like "I remember the way I would wait for you to arrive with kibble and a box full of beer / How I'd scratch the empties, desperate to hear you make the sound that you found for me / How after scrapping with the ferals and the tabby, I'd let you brush my matted fur / How I'd knead into your chest while you were sleeping. Shallow breathing made me purr, is astounding, but it's something he's always been able to do, and it's a huge part of why they're a band I've loved for nearly a decade.

Of course, at this stage in their career, The Weakerthans probably aren't going to win huge amounts of new fans; they're not trendy enough, their songs are too narrative driven, and their workrate isn't really suited a culture that's always out to consume as much as possible. But when waiting around for them to release albums yields something as wonderful as Reunion Tour, none of that really matters.