Sub Pop Records

With Tournament of Hearts the Constantines return with a record of desire: songs about nurses and marriage; songs about northern latitudes; songs about work and the weather; songs about loving. Ever gentlemen, this is not the telling after the kissing. These are the secret manifestos, an album heavy with the knowledge that the only truths worth telling are those truths told by lovers. Such truths are fleeting and disordered. It’s best to hurry, and to hurry hard.
Recorded in their hometown of Toronto at Halla Studios with Jeff McMurrich (Sea Snakes, Picastro, Hidden Cameras) Tournament of Hearts is the Constantines third full-length album. It follows two critically acclaimed albums released through Three Gut Records in their native Canada and Sub Pop for the rest of the world: 2001’s Constantines (reissued on Sub Pop in 2004) and 2003’s Shine a Light. We can speak of their passports: the Constantines have toured the US, Canada, Europe and the UK, playing shows with the likes of The Weakerthans, Pretty Girls Make Graves, Lungfish, Don Caballero, The Arcade Fire, Oneida, Broken Social Scene, Modest Mouse, Guided by Voices. We can speak of their festive spirits: happy participants at SxSW, NxNE, CMJ, The Village Voice Siren Music Festival, All Tomorrow’s Parties (LA 2004, curated by Isaac Brock), Montreal Pop Explosion, and, significantly, the Dawson City Music Festival. Truths were revealed on the tundra and by the midnight sun.

Understanding the potentially aggressive northern attitude, Fat Bobby Matador (Oneida), the well-recognized American scholar/rocker who assisted in the making of Tournament of Hearts, was asked his opinion on the Constantines’ role in North American international cultural relations:

The Constantines, presumed to be Canadian by birth and upbringing, are demonstrably so…