John K Samson always seems to find a way into my ears. I first came across him as the bass player for propagandhi in their first two or three records. Years later I ran across a song on the internet that was way catchy and a good combination of pop hooks and power chords. It ended up being a band called the weakerthans and I found out later that this was the same guy who used to be in propagandhi. Seems he left the band to pursue his own thing, and since it was so different I didn't really mind. Propagandhi was still cranking out all kinds of good stuff and now another band was putting out good stuff as well. If the bands were similar that might have bothered me. A few weeks ago I ran across another song on the internet called "When I write my masters thesis" and I liked it as well. True to trend I had to investigate backwards and find out it was the same guy from the other two bands that had just put out a solo record. So Mr. Samson finds a way to impress me with alot that he does. As for my impressions on the whole record: It's a somewhat mellow affair. I like to bop along to weakerthans, rage along to propagandhi, but I have not found the suitable emotion for the solo record yet. It feels somewhat introspective and when that happens I can hear my more close minded punk rock friends calling it emo and boring. It's not a raging party album. He just knows how to write interesting things to my ears.