"This album will knock you on your ass!" "The Weakerthans are probably too smart to be writing pop songs. The Canadian quartet's third album name-checks...

MORE >

"This album will knock you on your ass!"

"The Weakerthans are probably too smart to be writing pop songs. The Canadian quartet's third album name-checks French philosopher Michel Foucault, Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, and Marxist novelist/art critic John Berger, and is inspired by a host of Canadian poets we've never heard of. And it rocks. Reconstruction Site melds the personal, the political, and the philosophical seamlessly, rarely letting its bookishness get the better of it. On the title track, frontman John Samson toys with words, demonstrating the elusive power of language with a surreal wash of images, backed by an appropriately woozy pedal steel guitar. Driven by a chugging guitar riff, "The Reasons" is a love song for people who are embarrassed by love songs. "Psalm for the Elks Lodge Last Call" unfolds with the detailed anxiety of a Raymond Carver story, while the insistent, whimsical bang-up "Plea From a Cat Named Virtue" finds Samson getting an emotional kick in the ass from his cat. Too clever? Perhaps. But Reconstruction Site packs enough winsome power-pop punch that it's engaging even if you haven't the first damn clue who Jacques Derrida is."

Rating: 4/5 Stars

< LESS

In the late 1990s singer-songwriter John K. Samson split from his hyper-political, smart-mouthed punk band Propaghandi to head off on a more mellow and...

MORE >

In the late 1990s singer-songwriter John K. Samson split from his hyper-political, smart-mouthed punk band Propaghandi to head off on a more mellow and introspective route, trading the buzz-saw guitars and speed-metal tempos for keyboards, trumpets and a lap steel. As the third full-length CD from Samson and fellow sensitive Canadian rockers the Weakerthans, Reconstruction Site isn't a departure from previous albums, but more of the same literati lo-fi that quotes Martin Amis, writes from your kitty's point of view ("Why don't you ever want to play?/I'm tired of this piece of string" Samson croons on "Plea from a Cat Named Virtue") and remembers to yank hard at your heartstrings with simple, gorgeous acoustic strums and lyrics ("One Great City!", an ode to their hometown of Winnipeg). The Weakerthans' blend of pop, rock, folk and alt-country is smart, funny, sad and beautiful all at once; in this sad era of Jewel-authored verse books, they're our bona-fide rock and roll poet laureates.

< LESS