The Weather Station Details 'Loyalty' LP, Shares New Single and Tour Dates

Toronto folk scene staple Tamara Lindeman recently hinted that her third LP as the Weather Station would be arriving this spring. Sure enough, the new record, titled Loyalty, will be officially released on May 12 via Outside Music.
As previously reported, the record was made in France alongside Bahama's Afie Jurvanen and Robbie Lackritz (Feist, Jason Collett, Zeus).
"The record was called Loyalty from the beginning — it was the first decision I made about it," Lindeman said in a statement. "It's a word you usually see written in copperplate script, a virtue: LOYALTY. But the songs don't treat it that way, just as a thing to unpack. It's a force that you have to reckon with: loyalty to the dream, to the 'work,' to the mythical idea of 'you' that somebody thought they saw. It can be a weakness as much as a strength; it can keep you from the reality of your own life, your own self."
A press release explains that Loyalty hears Lindeman exploring new sonic ground, achieving "an eerie harmonic and rhythmic tension new to the Weather Station."
And despite playing guitar, banjo, keys and vibes, Lindeman's main focus and most jarring talent remains her skill as a songwriter. "Lyrically, Loyalty inverts and involutes the language of confession, of regret, of our most private and muddled mental feelings by externalizing those anxieties through exquisite observation of the things and people we accumulate, the modest meanings accreted during even our most ostensibly mundane domestic moments," reads the press release.
In this vein, new single "Way It Is, Way It Could Be" questions the notion of truth, as depicted through a sinister accident. Lindeman sings about the traumatizing sight of two dogs getting killed by a car, but upon a second look, realizes that they've survived.
You can scroll past the album's tracklisting and the Weather Station's just-announced Canadian tour dates down below to hear the new single.
1. Way It Is, Way It Could Be
2. Loyalty
3. Floodplain
4. Shy Women
5. Personal Eclipse
6. Life's Work
7. Like Sisters
8. I Mined
9. Tapes
10. I Could Only Stand By
11. At Full Height
Tour dates:
05/08 Peterborough, ON - Gordon Best Theatre
05/14 Toronto, ON - The Great Hall
05/21 Wakefield, QC - Blacksheep Tavern
05/25 Winnipeg, MB - West End Cultural Centre*
05/27 Saskatoon, SK - Broadway Theatre*
05/29 Edmonton, AB - Royal Albert Museum*
05/30 Calgary, AB - Central United Church *
06/01 Nelson, BC - Civic Theatre*
06/03 Victoria, BC - Alix Goolden Performance Hall*
06/04 Vancouver, BC - The Vogue Theatre*
* with Great Lake Swimmers