The title of
the Weakerthans' third full-length LP is appropriate, because even if it's not meant to,
Reconstruction Site is a great way to describe the most defined document yet of singer, principal songwriter, and guitarist
John Samson's trajectory from the punk rock of
Propagandhi to
the Weakerthans' quietly determined indie pop. While his former group was as concerned with social change as it was with a lockstep drum beat,
Samson's recent work has traded power-chord fury for the slow-burning -- but no less hot -- embers of fully realized, deceptively simple pop/rock that brings the songwriter's flair for metaphor to stage front. Like
the Mountain Goats'
John Darnielle, whose intelligence and wit seep into every corner of his work, the odd, sometimes grandiose song titles of
Reconstruction Site are headings for lyrics that revisit pet
Samson topics -- the beauty/hell of life in Winnipeg, destructive/confusing personal relationships, and personal ethics as a reaction to the welfare state. The latter, detailed in "Our Retired Explore (Dines With Michel Foucault in Paris, 1961)," is some heady stuff, to be sure. But
Samson just as easily personifies a pussycat in "Plea from a Cat Named Virtue," where his tabby takes him to task for "sleeping as much as I do." Though Virtue is afraid of
Samson's sister's basset hound, he encourages his owner to stop "repeating the self-defeating lies you've been repeating since the day you brought me home." Musically,
Reconstruction Site has more in common with literate indie types like
Clem Snide or even the mature, clear-eyed work of
Michael Penn. The dissonant chords of punk and hardcore have been replaced by plucked guitars with a country feel ("[Manifest]," and "Time's Arrows"); the harmony-laded "Benediction" even employs a full-on pedal steel guitar. The acoustic "One Great City!" is the album's most lyrically acidic track; an Edward Hopper-esque study of bitter characters in the city where
Samson makes his home, for better or worse: it reveals the singer's own love-hate relationship with his country and city. ~ Johnny Loftus