These Estates write songs about bars that always seem to end up empty and hearts that never quite do. Since 2007, Canada’s finest lads have been mutating their guitar rock into the midrange clang of a pre-collapse connection. No virtuosity, no heroics, and no time to waste if we’re ever going to find out what parts of you are also parts of me. Ideologically speaking, the poet John Ashbery spoke of a similar moment when he wrote “We live in the sigh of our present.” 

After one EP, two singles, two studio albums, and a live collection, These Estates have discovered the doubt in devotion and vice versa on their newest full-length release, Western Developments.

Those looking for curious missteps will find none. The hooks are there. The smart rhythm section is there.The clattering guitar is there. It’s all there, even though their sound has matured, like a bank deposit or fortuitous mold. What These Estates want to do has remained embarrassingly simple from even the earliest of days: tell the truth loudly.

For an album so focused on the meat and potatoes of what we expect, deserve, receive, and deliver in regards to our fellow humans, Western Developments is fervently committed to songs that stack up like days gone by, if we let them. A loon's call, a whiffed joke, a plane ride back home.

The loose shag of the guitars and literary bent of the lyrics create an honest simplicity over the course of nine songs and 37 minutes. The truths show up with aplomb, nestled in a rough and tumble rhythm section that keep the end results close enough to the pub for maximum commiseration.

Maybe it’s true that there are only two types of stories – a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town. But maybe there’s a third type of story, one that’s told on Western Developments. It’s a story about going nowhere at all but paying attention, because the truth is that a man on a journey and a stranger coming to town are the same story told from opposite points of view, and Western Developments has already seen everything and everyone worth seeing.

Vinyl is limited to 300 copies. Out now. Act accordingly.

John Cameron: vocals, guitar, baritone guitar, piano
Matthew Carr: drums
Mason Pitzel: bass, baritone guitar, guitar, vocals, acoustic guitar, piano
These Estates Benevolent Association Choir: background vocals

Side A
Anybody Evil
Come Back Home
South End Girls
The Fog
Don't Feel Bad

Side B
Undertaker
Devotion
World Keeps Spinning
The Balcony