Reconstruction Site by The Weakerthans

Pros: Possibly my favorite album of the year, so far.
Cons: - - -

I first realized I was experiencing some kind of life expanding energetic shift back in late July. I had just celebrated my 27th birthday and I was preparing to go off to a sleepaway camp where I was to be a counselor working for children with disabilitie ...

Pros: I love this town
Cons: I hate Winnipeg

Colin Meloy sings that “Albert Camus said living was anguish” on Neapolitan Bridesmaid, a song by Tarkio, his Decemberists-anticipati ng college rock band. On The Past Is A Grotesque Animal, Of ...

Pros: An easy album to listen to, has something to say.
Cons: why did I wait so long to buy this?!?!

John Samson left Propaghandi to form the Weakerthans, and I figured, how is he going to top his previous band. Well, on this, the band's third LP, he comes close. It's apples and oranges for the most part, since this doesn't sound ANYTHING like ...

Pros: Great tunes, great lyrics, great band...
Cons: Okay, they're Canadian...

The Weakerthans are one of those bands that make one stand a little straighter, walk a little prouder and breathe a little easier in the safe knowledge that not all rock and roll is irrevocably lost down the Good Charlotte stinkhole. This album is a worthy follow-up to the glorious "Left and Leaving." The songs are eminently hummable and full of hooks, but the band surprises with moments of quiet and flourishes of keyboard and even horn section. It's still punk-derived rock, though, and they deliver especially well. John K. Samson may be the genre's most plain-spoken frontman, but he's also its smartest. Who else would or could name-check Michel Foucault without sounding like some annoying know-it-all?