The Constantines have, to date, built a career upon the idea that making solid and enduringly interesting music is possible, even if the only changes made on an album-to-album basis are a series of small alterations that ultimately renovate the face of their music. Confused? Look at it this way: the band first started out making very modal song cycles that, while sinewy, felt expansive. With Tournament Of Hearts a couple of years ago, they broke the mode and, with songs like “Draw Us Lines” and “Working Full Time," tried their hands at walking the line as the songs proceeded in a linear fashion from point A to B to C. The result was an incredibly lucid album that once again re-imagined The Constantines as a martial rock outfit. On Kensington Heights though, the band discovers the greatest success by splitting the difference between the two and augmenting their earlier, more modal craft with anthemic Tournament bombast.
From the opening skitter and shake of “Hard Feelings," The Constantines ring in their return with Stephen Lambke and Bryan Webb’s dueling razor wire guitars and Will Kidman’s keyboard hysteria. It's the most rousing moment for the keys in a rock context since The Who first made jaws drop with “Baba O’Riley." The song hits the ground running—there is no build—and with its point made, the band just struts through “Million Star Hotel” before sounding the charge with “Trans Canada”’s oddly Cure-ish guitar bustle.
The Constantines honestly do go for broke in a lot of ways and places on Kensington Heights; “Shower Of Stones” envisions playing a transcendent and majestic mountain summit before “Credit River” ushers in crushing waves of synths. Those waves send the band to the tranquil, aquatic depths of “I Will Not Sing A Hateful Song” and singer Webb finds absolution in the stripped down candlelight introspection of “New King,” which mutates as the tape rolls into a wry smile by the time the song eventually fades into the ether.
After nine years, even the most diehard and rabid fans would have to concede that while Constantines have had a celebrated career so far—and the praise has been deserved—no one saw Kensington Heights coming. While their career has been marked by small innovations and improvements that have always added up to Constantines totally recasting the face of their music, what occurs on this album goes far beyond a simple, day-surgery facelift. In making those small changes and infusing the anthemia of Tournament Of Hearts into the thematic and instrumental urgency of albums like Shine A Light and the Modern Sinner Nervous Man EP, the Constantines have realized their full potential on this album. They’ve found the one thing that they’ve been missing but everyone listening knew was possible: Kensington Heights has a beautiful sound about it that’s knee-buckling in its disarming and intense delivery, but it could also fill a stadium.
Download "Hard Feelings" from Kensington Heights – [mp3]
For more information visit www.constantines.ca or myspace.com/constantines
