We're almost weeping with excitement about this show. Did you see them at The End Of The Road? Or supporting Shearwater? At The Wilmington? What a band!   

“The Constantines maintain a feverishly partisan dedication to the wild delirium of rock ’n roll… air punchingly anthemic.” – NME

“Once the Constantines start heading off-stage, the “woo hoos” start going off like air-raid sirens. No one’s saying it, but everyone’s thinking it: we have something to believe in again. The Constantines are the children of Fugazi, stepbrothers to Make-Up and Trail of Dead, the grand-kids of Springsteen and Strummer. They call what they do soul music, not because of what it sounds like, but where it hits you.” – EYE Weekly

The Constantines are the best live band I have ever seen, entirely dedicated to communicating with an audience. Able to produce moments of sustained and complicated quiet, they are also one of the loudest bands I have encountered. Yet the volume is never used to repel the listener. Instead, they co-opt the sometimes aggressive conventions of rock to express the overwhelming parts of being alive, to explore the themes of community and struggle, to remind us we belong to something larger than our individual selves. The decibels tell us we are not alone.

This new record might be my favourite simply because it best captures the elements of the live show that has so often moved and inspired me. Named after the street in Toronto’s vibrant Kensington Market area where they practice in a basement, Kensington Heights, like the neighbourhood itself, is a vibrant maze of histories and sounds. The album is fittingly dedicated to the late Gar Gillies, the Winnipeg amp-maker who designed and built the Garnet amplifiers that defined the overdriven classic Canadian-rock sound of the Guess Who and BTO. Gar was building and refurbishing amps right up to his death last year at the age of 85, and some of his last work was used on Kensington Heights, a familiar sound finding a radically new voice. John K Samson