
The Weather Station, a folk band based out of Toronto, released its seventh studio album, “Humanhood,” on Friday. The album takes on a swathe of modern issues while embracing the band’s acoustic and artistic roots.
“Humanhood,” as the title implies, is primarily focused on the act of being human and the ways that humanity hurts itself. Tamara Lindeman, lead singer and guitarist of the band, described the run-up to the project as “the hardest creative experience I’ve had,” citing her own struggles with mental health. She referred to the album as a “patchwork quilt” of different ideas, sewn together in a dramatic conclusion.
Lindeman hasn’t been known to shy away from existential themes, like the horrors of climate change that permeated The Weather Station’s acclaimed 2021 album “Ignorance.” As a self-described activist, Lindeman and her lyrics have frequently been another vessel for her beliefs, and “Humanhood” may be the epitome of her personal approach to music-making.
“Humanhood” begins with the instrumental track “Descent,” which features a hypnotic flute performance by woodwind virtuoso Karen Ng, one of The Weather Station’s key members. Her winding solo leads directly into the next track, “Neon Signs,” which takes aim at the wastefulness of current capitalism and advertising excess.
“Out on the street, I went walkin’ in the heat,” Lindeman sings. “Nobody meets my eyes except witty signs, luxury designs.”
“Neon Signs” also sports one of the album’s most exciting instrumentals, an intricate mix of percussion, strings, flute, guitars, synths and piano. Lindeman’s maximalist approach to songwriting propels the song forward, but some of the individual instruments get lost in the noise.
By contrast, the next song, “Mirror,” has one of the album’s most straightforward instrumentals. Still, the percussive use of guitar plucks and industrial clangs along with tasteful saxophone lines from Ng make the simple concept thoroughly entertaining. Lyrically, Lindeman revisits well-trodden ground, addressing environmentalist themes and ruminating on issues of self-image as she reflects in a metaphorical mirror.
On the next track, “Window,” Ng and Lindeman trade melodies back and forth on flute and piano respectively. The song is far too short and barely develops, but it’s fun while it lasts. Its up-tempo nature makes it all the more confusing that the interlude it abruptly segues into, “Passage,” is just a mess of radio static.
“Body Moves” follows up that brief interlude with a fleshed-out idea as Lindeman sings of all the ways “the body fools you.” Unfortunately, The Weather Station decides to cut off early yet again, letting the track fade away without any sense of finality. “Body Moves” ends up being nothing more than an interesting, but unfinished, thought.
The next track, “Ribbon,” makes up a little bit for this failure of ambition. Lindeman brings out the range in her performance, beginning the song with somber whispers and finishing it out with echoing cries.
“Humanhood,” the album’s title track, brings a tad bit more energy to the project by adding a banjo harmony into the instrumental. While the album had begun to stray toward being formulaic, the inclusion of the banjo and more vocal harmonies makes “Humanhood” seem a little less stale. Lindeman also includes a bit of spoken word in her lyrics, which address the uncomfortable reality that everyone is a member of the same humanity.
“This citizenship in this history, in this moment in time,” Lindeman sings. “This fragile life, one of a generation that might end the world.”
To this point, The Weather Station had struck a delicate balance between creating songs with a pertinent message and falling into the trap of being overly preachy.
Unfortunately, the next song, “Irreversible Damage,” plunges headfirst into that pit, stripping out all singing and most of the musical complexity in favor of a spoken-word lecture from Lindeman. The five minutes this song takes up are the most agonizing and soulless on the album, complete with pseudo-philosophical thoughts comparing current mass extinctions to personal struggles.
Even the following song, “Lonely,” can’t fix the fallout of “Irreversible Damage” and seems to languish in its shadow. The slow track centers on a tepid piano performance, revisiting the narrative thread of the “patchwork quilt” binding the album together.
This theme is carried straight into “Sewing,” where Lindeman explores the imperfection inherent to solving real life problems. The instrumental bridge in “Sewing” may be one of the most powerful moments on the record, as the entire ensemble of instruments crescendos into a loud scream before fading away. Even if the ending is a bit anticlimactic, “Sewing” cohesively ties together the album’s concept.
“Humanhood” finds itself stranded between the urge to proliferate an environmental message and the passion to make good music. Until now, those two goals didn’t clash in The Weather Station’s work. Hopefully this album isn’t an indicator of the band’s ongoing artistic direction.