| Constantines - Kensington Heights |
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| Written by Steve McPherson | |
| Friday, June 13, 2008 at 02:15 PM | |
 Constantines - Kensington Heights Kensington Heights Arts & Crafts www.constantines.ca www.myspace.com/constantines For a bunch of mild-mannered-looking guys from Canada, the Constantines certainly make some disastrously unhinged rock. Not spastic, not twitchy, not frenetic, but specifically unhinged, like a locked strong box under pressure that's finally blown its fasteners, and no one can force what's come out back in. Even on Kensington Heights' comparatively peaceful songs, like the loping "Our Age," singer Bryan Webb's scraped-raw vocals burn like hot coals. He delivers lines like "I was not up for saying grace / Hung up before our love had faced / A table set with spinning plates / Only our age between us" with a weary and beaten down warmth, the cascading drum roll below him laying down unfolding highway pavement. In fact, the rhythm of the open road is the foundation of Kensington Heights; this is, above all else, a road record. "Time Can Be Overcome" is a winding country drive along oxbows at the beginning of spring; "I Will Not Sing A Hateful Song" a starlit midnight run through a city's outskirts beside cold water flats (also the name of a now-forgotten '90s band—Cold Water Flat—whose mix of urgency and plangency is reflected here); and then there's the thunderous one-two punch of "Million Star Hotel" and "Trans Canada," which should be cranked and blasted out of open windows pounding above shimmering macadam in high summer heat. At such volumes, Constantines sound bigger than God. "Million Star Hotel" swings between delicate, almost jazzy verses and crashing, violent choruses, climaxing in the buzzsaw-mimicking sound of guitars bending into tune. "I just want to get out / of the city tonight," cries Webb in the chorus, and his escape is made good in "Trans Canada." That tune stretches a grindingly distorted and relentless bass keyboard loop out into the distance, all the way across the band's home country. "I had that vision, brother," goes Webb's strangled cry in the chorus. "The one about you, brother / We did ride, ride on the shining path together / The black angel / I was on his side / Burn our deep river / Looking into the night / No vacancy / So long / Trans Canada." This is the part on the highway Constantines are driving marked with a "Falling Rocks" sign. The handful of less-than-successful tracks here ("Shower of Stones," "Credit River") can't slow down the Constantines' juddering semi of rock goodness. As cokemachineglow.com sagely noted, Wolf Parade and Broken Social Scene might be getting all the applause for bringing the rock in Canada, but Constantines are working just as hard, laying pavement all across their great land. COMING UP: Constantines with Red Pens and The Millionth Word. Monday, June 16. Seventh St. Entry. 8 pm. 21+. $10/$12. |
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| Last Updated: Monday, June 16, 2008 at 10:54 AM |
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