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"  Can you imagine Fargo without the snow to catch the blood? Runaway Train without Eric Roberts desperate for &amp;quot;f-f-f-fucking socks&amp;quot;? The Empire Strikes Back without Hoth? It&amp;#039;s more than the backdrop; it lends the foreboding that comes with long nights, the melancholy of trees without leaves. It&amp;#039;s the actor pinned with portending gloom and given a haunting voice. Turns out what winter does for movies, it does for music, too. It&amp;#039;s humid with blue skies out, yet I&amp;#039;ve just listened to the new record from the Weakerthans, Reunion Tour, and for so many reasons and no good reason at all, I&amp;#039;m close to shivering. I&amp;#039;ve always loved this punk-folk four-piece from Winnipeg, loved them far beyond that point where fans become possessors. I&amp;#039;ve stolen lines from them for my stories, worn their black T-shirts in my author photos, pushed them on friends and readers and strangers like drugs. I even drywalled and mudded my entire attic listening to their last record, Reconstruction Site, on repeat. Now those songs bring to mind summer&amp;#039;s peak in Toronto, because drywalling my attic was fucking hot. But this new music, it&amp;#039;s winter, the way anything by the Shins can sound as though they&amp;#039;re using icicles for instruments, the way the National&amp;#039;s Boxer is winter (but not Alligator), the way Athlete&amp;#039;s Tourist is winter (but not Vehicles &amp;amp;amp; Animals). It&amp;#039;s winter in the way nonacoustic Springsteen isn&amp;#039;t. The way Modest Mouse isn&amp;#039;t -- at least when they&amp;#039;re jangly. And it&amp;#039;s beautiful for it.  The Weakerthans have dabbled with ambience, but despite the persistent tape-loop fuzz, this record sounds stark somehow, even more plaintive than their earlier stuff. Like A Simple Plan or The Ice Storm, taking it in too deep will make your chest hurt. It sounds like Winnipeg did that first winter after the Jets left, sad but still achingly pretty, like hoarfrost, a road blown over with drift, or a clean sheet at an empty rink. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/music/a3438/weakerthans1007/>