Almost two and a half years after third album Tournament of Hearts, gruff Toronto rockers Constantines are set to deliver their first 7" for Arts & Crafts next week. Both A-side "Hard Feelings", which is slated to appear on Constantines' forthcoming album, and B-side "Easy Money", which isn't, are now streaming on the band's MySpace, and initial listens suggest the songs have some of the fiery eloquence of prevous records. It suddenly occurs to me that Constantines are probably due for a slice of Brooklyn band the National's recently burgeoning fanbase: Both sing about the life of working drones. Both have deep-voiced, distinctive vocalists. And where Constantines were initially (accurately) tagged as a "Fugazi/Springsteen hybrid", as former Pitchfork writer Chris Ott put it, the National are more like Tindersticks/Springsteen. What is Shine A Light's smoldering "On to You" but an older, grittier, and inarguably more Canadian cousin to Boxer anthems like "Fake Empire"?

However, that isn't the side of Constantines we get on "Hard Feelings", which has the manic edge of faster-paced Constantines tunes like "Nighttime/Anytime (It's Alright)" or their masterful debut's ""Arizona". We don't get any declarations as sweeping or high-concept as the latter song's "As long as we are dying, we want the death of rock and roll." But you can tell by the way the one-time Rod Stewart-quoting band picks at Bee Gees' lyrical skeletons-- "You can tell by the way I walk"-- that they're pissed off about some kind of shit, likely a splintered relationship. The flip-side, "Easy Money", is slower, simpler, and sludgier, finding the band more in the mode of their occasional cover subjects, Neil Young and Crazy Horse. Like the last album's "Working Full Time", it's a song for working stiffs who long for an easier living. Surely making old Neil proud, the song morphs into a scraggly "Freebird"-esque guitar-solo at the bridge.

Streams:> Constantines: "Hard Feelings" / "Easy Money"
[from the "Hard Feelings" 7"; due 01/15/08 on Arts & Crafts]