There is no distinguishing this Canadian band from most other fellow Canuck musicians who sway heavily into the melting pot of folk rock. By melting pot, I mean that so many "proud Canadian" bands just seem to congeal into one another and start to sound just....Canadian.
Weeping Tile is not so different in that you instantly get a sense of geography, a very typical theme that Canadian bands tend to gravitate towards. Look at The Tragically Hip, whose dilemna is of not being able to provide an iota of significance to our American neighbours. This national crisis [?!?] may be primarily the reason that Downie's lyrics focus around the Canadiana, which our American neighbours really couldn't care less about. Weeping Tile, of course, is no Tragically Hip, but they share similar "Canadian" problems, not to mention the same hometown of Kingston.
Fortunately for Weeping Tile, they've just been picked up by Warner, and eepee is actually their independent release, released almost a full two years ago. Their debut major label release is due out within the next month and it will hopefully bring a full-fledged sound and direction to the music and escape the route of so many other Canadian bands.
Sarah Harmer, formerly of Toronto's Saddletramps, fronts and writes for Weeping Tile. Her strong dominant voice serves up more than just similar sounding folk rock, but just isn't at times properly executed. Although Suzanne Vega comes to mind on slower tunes, other ones are distinctly Sarah filled with inspiration of making music because she wants to. The eight original songs are pretty good, and easily accessible to listen to. With guest appearances on eepee, the extra vocals, cello and piano make this barebone recording come across sounding big and impressively good. It is no surprise that a cover of Neil Young's "Don't Let It Bring You Down" secures a place on this disc, but is refreshing only in that they've taken a great song and made it their own.
It's hard to say at this point how major label success will influence, or affect Weeping Tile, but hopefully we'll see a good Canadian band make good in the some- times swampy pool of music industry hiatus.
