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Sept 14 - Sept 21,2003 |
The Weakerthans
Fast-rising Toronto-Winnipeg rockers deliver a killer third album
By Kerry Doole
Originally Published: 2003-09-07
One of Canadian music's best-kept secrets has just become a lot more visible. Over the space of five years and two previous albums, Winnipeg-based punk-rooted rockers The Weakerthans earned a devoted following inside and outside Canada, but traveled under the radar in terms of mainstream media and music industry attention.
Not that the band fretted over this. Their fiercely independent spirit and political idealism meant they would have rejected any attempts at seduction by major record labels anyway. Instead, they put out their albums, 1998's Fallow and 2000's Left And Leaving on G7 Welcoming Committee, a collectively run Winnipeg label.
When Tandem interviewed guitarist Stephen Carroll in 2000, he jokingly commented "Watch me put my foot in my mouth when we get a big record contract!" Well, the band hasn't sold their soul to a multi-national, but their recent deal with top U.S. indie label Epitaph is poised to boost their career significantly (Sweden's Burning Hearts label handles the European distribution).
The group's just-released third album, Reconstruction Site, certainly deserves the increased push it will get. The Weakerthans have long been this scribe's favourite Canadian band, and the new record just confirms that view. It defies easy categorization, though 'punk-folk' is a phrase commonly used. The songs are rooted in the poetically imaginative lyrics of singer John K. Samson, while his three comrades help frame them in subtle yet sometimes aggressive musical settings.
Bassist John P. Sutton told Tandem recently that "I am proud of the album. I think we achieved what we wanted. This time, we worked really hard in pre-production, recording a lot of the songs in our practice space, and seeing how things fit together. Then when we brought in the producer, Ian Blurton, we made some more changes. Ian really improved the songs as well. By the time we got to the studio, these were songs we knew really well, so we went in there and banged it off."
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