The Weather Station - The Weather Station (Album Review)
Monday, 09 October 2017
Written by Jacob Brookman
The Weather Station are a Torontonian folk band led by actor and musician Tamara Lindeman. Their eponymous fourth album is a collection of meticulously arranged tracks that demonstrate Lindeman’s deft understanding of vocal blend, melody and tonal cohesion. It is a wonderful work of confident poise, with storytelling front and centre.
Standout tracks include the delicate You and I (On the Other Side) and the album’s centrepiece, Impossible. The latter opens with a deep, rootsy beat that introduces a feeling of soft muscularity, gradually weaving a musical patchwork that utilises flute, majestic backing vocals and patient yet terse lyrical phrasing.
It falls between Fleetwood Mac, Laura Marling and Joni Mitchell in its melodic candour and emotional intelligence.
Lead single Thirty is another excellent cut, documenting the singer's observations as she reached that age milestone. It opens with an itchy, cautious vocal phrase that tumbles into falsetto before the beat picks up.
Lindeman’s key talent appears to be the deployment of storied, occasionally funny lyrics that arrive effortlessly and immaculately.
On Thirty: “Gas came down from a buck twenty — the joke was how it broke the economy anyhow / The dollar was down, but my friends opened businesses; there were new children / And again, I didn’t get married.” Beautiful stuff.
It’s not perfect. There could be a little more tonal variety, with tracks like Power and In an Hour meandering bloodlessly, while other songs could actually benefit from more melodic complexity. The opener, Free, is a bit boring, and while Complicit marries nimble vocal phrasing with compelling stop-start rhythms, it could do a few more chord changes thrown in. That might push 'The Weather Station' towards the commercially riskier territory of folk-prog, but that genre is overdue a revival anyway.
The Weather Station Upcoming Tour Dates are as follows:
Mon October 23 2017 - LONDON Lexington
Tue October 24 2017 - MANCHESTER Eagle Inn
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