THE WEAKERTHANS @ PEARL STREET

Weakerthans at Pearl Street

Daily Collegian | April 11, 2008

When Winnipeg native John K. Samson arrives in Northampton this Saturday night for The Weakerthans' performance at The Pearl Street Night Club, he'll be accompanied by more than just a library of music and his trusty metaphors. Samson carries with him the essence of nearly two decades of artistic evolution.

As a member of Propaghandi in the mid-1990s, Samson was a man full of untamed angst and idealism, using the stage as a forum for the band's collectively brash demands for radical social and political change. Vociferating on tracks with such unambiguous titles as "The Only Good Fascist Is a Very Dead Fascist" and "Middle Finger Response," musical subtleties became inconsequential afterthoughts, replaced in favor by a barrage of F-bombs and hostility.

Following their 1996 release "Less Talk, More Rock," Samson left his role in the band to pursue new artistic directions. Shortly after this he resurfaced with a new band, The Weakerthans, in 1997 with their debut release "Fallow," an album that was staggeringly removed from his established musical roots.

Somewhere along the transition between bands, Samson dropped his impetuous and edgy persona, transforming himself into a polished and introspective songwriter. The abrasive sounds and raucous lyrics that were once so synonymous with his presence were replaced by a decidedly more melodic and nuanced sound. Delicately played guitars and supplemental keyboards replaced the more hectic, thrash delivery of instrumentation listeners had grown accustomed to. Most significantly of all, Samson's lyrics unveiled themselves as categorically sensitive in their poeticism. The political-punk had discovered his softer side.

Following the initial success of "Fallow," the band has been unrelenting in their progression. The group has released three subsequent full-lengths over the course of their 10-year existence, with each garnering an increasing amount of fanfare and publicity while further detaching Samson from his days as a loud-mouthed anarchist, and fortifying his place as a one of indie rock's most gifted lyricists.

With his newfound approach to writing, Samson litters his songs with peculiar details of everyday life that seem so miniscule on the surface, but are unmistakably identifiable. Infusing this quality with his seemingly limitless poetic sensibilities, Samson successfully delivers multi-layered themes from a wide variety of narrative perspectives that span full albums.

The Weakerthans latest release, 2007's "Reunion Tour," has been met with a mixed critical reaction and can be best described as the bands most experimental album to date. There is more prominent use of keyboards throughout the album, the composition favors a softer sounding tone, and lyrically, the album shifts in perspective between every one of its 11 tracks.

On "Civil Twilight," Samson lyricizes from the perspective of a frustrated Winnipeg Transit bus driver professing his innermost thoughts. On "Relative Surplus Value," Samson returns to his revolutionary sentiments of old by providing a voice to victims of the ever-growing economic inequalities and failures of modern life, with a subtly and craft unseen during his younger years.

The album's most abstract selection comes in the form of "Elegy for Gump Worsley," a minimally structured song that serves as a spoken word tribute to former cult Canadian hockey legend who recently passed away.

The band does, however, manage to offset some of the bleaker topics covered on the album with some jovial material. You'd be hard pressed to find a song about women's curling that is more infectiously captivating than "Tournament of Hearts." "Sun in an Empty Room's" layered choruses provide a decidedly uplifting quality that contributed an essential balance to the complete work.

Despite the album's considerably fragmented themes, the notion of continuity is not entirely scraped on the far-stretching album. With "Virtue the Cat Explains Her Departure," Samson returns to deliver a heartbreaking conclusion to one of the band's most beloved character's story arch. On "Reconstruction Site," the band's 2003 effort, Samson introduced Virtue, a dejected and oft-ignored feline protagonist, in one of the album's most popular cuts "Plea from a Cat Named Virtue." While "Plea" is an upbeat crowd favorite full of unbridled energy, "Departure" is a somber and elegiac retelling of love once-cherished fading into a distant memory, concluding with Virtue reluctantly admitting "I can't remember the sound that you found for me, I can't remember the sound."

In their current form, The Weakerthans are the culmination of Samson's journey from a brash youth into a mature wordsmith. While The Weakerthans may never posses the raw energy of Propaghandi, they more than balance this with the tactful subtleties that define their sound and Samson's continued progression as a storyteller.

The Weakerthans play Saturday, April 12 with opening acts AA Bondy and Christine Fellows at The Pearl Street Night Club in Northampton, part of WMUA's Left of the Dial Concert Series. Doors open for the event at 8:30 p.m. and tickets are $15 in advance, $18 at the door.