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But on their new album "Night Of The Shooting Stars," that might change.
Consider guitarist Dave Bidini's track "Mumbletypeg, which includes this stanza: " "Your love is a flower I pluck from your hair/We park by the water, our bodies laid bare."
Or how about "Here To There To You:" "The snow that falls and wets your face/That pulls me to the deepest space/Of blood and oxygen and sweat/Down the salted river of your neck."
Bidini laughs when asked about the heretofore undetected influence of "Let's Get It On"-era Marvin Gaye on the Rheostatics' sound.
"For me, it was not feeling guilty about joyful songs," Bidini said via telephone recently, as the group prepared for their epic residency at Toronto's Horseshoe Tavern, which runs from Nov. 8 through 17.
"I have wanted to address love and the love that exists in my life, the means by which that comes forth artistically and emotionally and psychologically," Bidini said of the songs.
"I think the tendency for artists is to search for the darkness to draw out the art. It is also hard to fake being happy. I don't think there is any reason to fake being happy or not happy.
"I have come to a place in my life where I can see the work that has been done over 15 years -- the music and the books -- and I would be a goof to go up there and say how shitty the world has been to me, because it is not true."
Although "Night Of The Shooting Stars" has been billed as the band's first non-thematic album since 1996's "The Blue Hysteria," Bidini points out that several of the songs had their roots in a commissioned millennium project, including the album's epic closer "Satan Is The Whistler"; "We Went West, "Remain Calm"; and "These Days Are Good for The Canadian Conservative Youth Party Alliance."
"We purposely decided to just string a bunch of songs together. There is not quite the hook to hang this one on, compared to other projects, where you could tell what the vision of the project was," he said.
"Certainly three or four of those songs were related or addressed certain contemporary issues. They might be linked that way, but it didn't go beyond that, as far as a theme.
"Ninety percent of the record came out as a snapshot of a time and place and experience."
The band is currently drummer-less, but producer Michael Phillip Wojewoda (who mixed the new album) is filling in temporarily.
"I think we will stick with Michael through Christmas. There is a pretty decent-sized lineup stretching around the corner of people who want to take the hot-seat. So I think what we might do is hold auditions. That can be uncomfortable for everybody," he said, adding that whoever gets the nod will ideally become a full-member of the band.
Aside from his duties with the band, Bidini has earned a name for himself as an author. Having already covered the world of touring rock 'n' roll ("On A Cold Road") and hockey ("Tropic Of Hockey") in previous volumes, he will next turn his attention to another of his obsessions.
"I am going to do a baseball book. It has always been a third love of mine," he said.
The new book will focus on a small Italian town where a love of America's national pastime took hold when liberating Allied forces introduced the sport to the local population after the Second World War.
"We were just there a couple of weeks ago. Nobody plays soccer. They have seven diamonds in this one town. There is this great legacy. DiMaggio hit there in '58. All of the players on the Italian national team come from this one town.
"I am going to go over there and write about them and the Italian experience through baseball."
To reinforce the Italian connection, "Night Of The Shooting Stars" takes its title from sibling filmmakers Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's 1982 film "Notte Di San Lorenzo," which -- in an odd bit of coincidence -- is set around the time of the Allied liberation of Italy.
"Night Of The Shooting Stars" was the film's English-language title, and refers to the fact that the Italian festival falls on Aug. 10 during a time that is statistically the most active period for shooting stars.
"We played at Fernie, B.C., and there was a meteor shower," Bidini said. "We were all pretty high. I think I just mentioned the movie, and it just sort of stuck.
"And ('Night Of The Shooting Stars') is an evening record more than any other."