The Walkmen- Heaven

You know, in the same way that the comparisons made about Wolf Parade and Destroyer to David Bowie never ring true, I never really saw the U2 influence on The Walkmen. Sure, both bands made music that had a big sense of drama and emotion to it, but only U2 could really be called anthemic.

Until now. Heaven, the new album from The Walkmen, is anthemic...but does it sound like a Walkmen album? Does it matter?

Heaven is the first time The Walkmen have allowed themselves to be so obvious about who they're working with. Meaning that the bright, full sound of producer Phil Ek and the vocal contributions from Robin Pecknold of the Fleet Foxes are as clear as day. Odd to think this was the same band who blended the vocals of the otherwise grating guy from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! so well into one of their songs on their last record that I don't think many people even noticed him. But I digress. The clear-as-day Fleet Foxes influence, aside from the times when Pecknold is singing, is in the way Hamilton Leithauser is approaching vocals this time out. When I saw The Walkmen open for Fleet Foxes last year, he seemed to be trying out a new more powerful style, belting out lyrics and holding onto notes until your heart shook with the full sound of it. This is definitely fully realized on tracks like 'Heaven' and 'The One You Love', and it's hard not to get swept up in their energy and pull. Leithauser's singing may have been rough, and a sticking point for some, in the band's past but on Heaven he sings his heart out.

While The Walkmen may not always sound like The Walkmen on Heaven, the attempts to simultaneously grow and mature their sound are all successes. Song for song, it'd be tough to find a record in the band's discography that can match Heaven. Lisbon comes close though its surf and ethnic flourishes felt self conscious, whereas the variety on display here—from the claustrophobic-and-yet-anthemic 'The Witch', to the solo acoustic ballad 'Southern Heart', to the charging arena rock guitar slashes and clap-a-long drum beat of 'Heartbreaker'--is dizzying even as it all manages to cohere.

In tipping their hat to their classic rock and contemporary influences, The Walkmen have stumbled on a way to make a mature, dad-rock/contented-family-life record just as thrilling and richly rewarding as their previous albums with the aforementioned flourishes and stripped down production style. It may not perhaps grab you as closely and emotionally as their other albums, but like a surprisingly stylish hand-me-down suit from a Grandfather, you know someday you'll grow into it. 

11 Stray Thoughts

1) The new album by Beach House, Bloom, is pretty good even though it feels more like a slightly different sequel to Teen Dream than the next step in the band's evolution. Don't get me wrong, it's almost as good as Teen Dream. Perhaps the best parallel is Radiohead's Kid A and Amnesiac; both are great, but the former came first and felt newer/fresher even if many prefer the latter.

2) After spending most of their career using as little instrumentation as possible, and falling more often than not on the dour side of things, The Walkmen have recruited producer Phil Elk and guest Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes to help them expand their sound. The result is arguably the band's best record yet, Heaven.

3) The titles of the new Beach House and The Walkmen albums should be switched. Heaven should be a place of relative stagnation but enjoyment (more like how Beach House's new one feels), whereas Bloom is more fitting for the by turns majestic and uplifting Walkmen record.

4) You should immediately go listen to all the Felt that you can. Such an underrated, under-known band.

5) I've slowly become addicted to Beach Fossils. Their new single, Shallow/Lessons, is fantastic, and I'm definitely anticipating their forthcoming sophomore record with increasing impatience.

6) The Horrors and The Drones are also underrated and under-known bands. The Horrors's Primary Colours sounds like a combination of Liars and My Bloody Valentine. The Drones recorded Gala Mill at the titular mill in an isolated area of Australia, and the atmosphere of that environment permeates these songs. The Drones sound most to me like the rock guitar side of Sun Kil Moon and the impassioned side of Nick Cave combined with bare bones, distorted Spiderland guitars as engineered by Steve Albini.

7) Bardo Pond's 'Back Porch' and 'Tommy Gun Angel' kick incredible amounts of ass.

8) The Days Of Wine & Roses by The Dream Syndicate is a perfect amalgamation of Velvet Underground and The Feelies-esque jangle-pop.

9) Sufjan Steven's Age Of Adz gets better with time.

10) How I Met Your Mother is my new favorite sitcom. Imagine a modern version of Seinfeld, with all the wit, neurotic characters, made up words and terms, and odd misadventures that implies, but actually much better than that comparison makes it sound.

11) Predator 2, as with Ghostbusters 2, is an unfairly maligned sequel to a classic film.

The Walkmen- A Hundred Miles Off

I've always thought of the The Walkmen as men of much finesse and ease, of professionalism and self-control. But during the mid-point of their career-so-far they recorded a cover of the entirety of John Lennon and Harry Nilsson's Pussy Cats. An album written and recorded during their infamous “lost weekend” together, it's a record of reverential tributes to music from their rock 'n roll youths but also one of debauched looseness. The Walkmen's take on the record is a bit more polished and less interesting, but it certainly must've influenced (or was influenced by) their sessions for A Hundred Miles Off.

You see, this is an album that overturns my assumptions about the band. The songwriting isn't consistently strong and finessed. Nearly every song has a claustrophobic/dramatic feel thanks to the pervasive, borderline-dissonant guitar and organ sounds. Recorded during the Fall of 2005 into early 2006, A Hundred Miles Off has a definite 'cabin fever' atmosphere. It's a record for those random work nights where you realize you've been sleeplessly pacing around your apartment and you have to wake up in three hours for work. Much of the time, it has an energetic rush: 'Tenley Town' is the closest they'll ever get to punk rock. This is also a record for those reeling drunken nights when you've recently broken up with someone or are about to. 'All Hands and The Cook' sounds like a nervous breakdown and the lyrics read like fragments from a bitter, rambling email to an ex-girlfriend.

This is a record which, taken on an objective-as-possible critical metric, feels sloppy and tossed off, more akin to something by Pavement than The Walkmen. Yet I feel like this is the kind of album which sits in your collection until that perfect moment when it suddenly seems alive and makes sense to you. In this perfect moment, the chaotic collage art cover and the very-appropriate album title call out to you because you're not feeling like your usual self, either. Indeed, you feel “off”, or more precisely, “a hundred miles off.” Whatever has put you into this state seems deeply analogous to the late night intoxicated dramas of A Hundred Miles Off such that you are finally happy you bought this record.

As this album sits at the point before The Walkmen became consummate professionals on the excellent You & Me, there's a certain bent appeal to hearing them as slightly-younger men who probably drank and spilled their share of beer during the year or so these sessions, and those of their Pussy Cats cover, took place. They were temporarily the kind of guys who went out to bars more than two nights a week, who threw horn sections into their songs for the hell of it; A Hundred Miles Off staggers to a start with the reeling 'Louisiana', mariachi horns and all. Everywhere, but particularly on 'Emma, Get Me A Lemon', Hamilton Leithauser's vocals are at their most pinched and strained, as if he had recorded everything in one take after spending the better part of a day recovering from a hangover while listening to The Basement Tapes and Blonde On Blonde over and over.

A Hundred Miles Off is the weakest record in The Walkmen's career but that's only because this is a “let your hair down” affair. Held to the standards of even their debut, when they were still trying to shake the last remnants of the Jonathan Fire*Eater sound from themselves, it comes up a bit wanting. But you'll note I just said “a bit”, because the more I listen to this album, and the more times I hear it in a mindset of appropriate desperation and unsettled-ness about my life, the more I like it. This is music for times when you aren't so much depressed as you are unhappy. When you're not so much an alcoholic as a temporary lush who can't face harsh reality just yet because it's still too much for a sober mind and heart to deal with.

4 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

Weekly Whiskey Episode 8

Hey presto, it's episode 8!

The Walkmen- You & Me

Driving home from a girlfriend's apartment after almost no sleep on some morning this past November, the dawning realization that things weren't going to work between us was somehow literally mirrored by the overcast November morning's lack of sunshine. I had been listening to You & Me by The Walkmen the night before yet it took until this moment for the record to hit home. Inarguably the band's most relationship focused album, its by turns defeated, ecstatic, romantic, cynical, and world-weary music seemed to perfectly encapsulate the things I was feeling. On 'New Country', Hamilton Leithauser sang "I'm back on my own/don't worry about me/I got no more baggage", and it was as if someone I had never met was telling me how I would eventually feel.

After the claustrophobic production of A Hundred Miles Off and the sloppy, just-for-fun cover of the entire Pussycats album by John Lennon and Harry Nilsson, The Walkmen recorded You & Me, a much more intimate, sparse, and finessed album. Songs on their first two albums demonstrated that the band were often at their best when as few instruments as possible were employed; while the full band sound of A Hundred Miles Off worked for the most part, its songs seemed less distinct and memorable. Some critics and listeners mistake the sound of You & Me for being too mellow but I always think of it as the band finally maturing to the point where their fascination with classic 60s and 70s albums and nuanced, inventive playing fully blossomed. Why? Well, because they had finally grown into it. No longer were they 20-something New Yorkers playing at being too old and tired of the night life. Now they embodied it.
There is a genuine maturity to this record, a difficult to define sense of craft and professionalism that never comes at the cost of sounding too intellectual and cold. I must've listened to 'Donde Esta La Playa' a dozen times in a row while driving to work on certain mornings, the detailed, spacious production allowing Matt Barrick's criminally underappreciated skills as a drummer to shine, his tom-toms sounding somewhere between a jazz drummer and slow motion surf rock. Elsewhere, Leithauser is given plenty of room to himself on 'Long Time Ahead Of Us', the other instruments low in the mix, his every inflection and pause between lyrics timed for maximum effect. The Walkmen of the first three albums were a great band, but You & Me was the point where they began to make music for the ages. Bows + Arrows felt very timely; You & Me feels timeless.

No one makes records like The Walkmen, so it's safe to say that no one makes relationship-y albums like them, either. I suspect that each listener will get something different out of You & Me, the lyrics and atmosphere broad enough that you can latch onto the swagger and confidence of 'In The New Year' and the romantic pledge of 'Red Moon' and miss out on the break-up stuff entirely. The spacious, detailed production and bare-minimum-instruments-necessary songwriting can also reflect different states of being, whether it's a kind of simulacra of the loss and new emptiness you feel or a soundtrack that gives the world a hopeful, wide open feel, as if you were listening to it in a house you just bought that has no furniture or furnishings so that all sounds are echoed and a bit larger-than-life.

Lisbon and Bows + Arrows are The Walkmen's true masterpieces, and indeed, part of why I love You & Me is that sometimes it sounds like a dry run forLisbon, in particular the brass section on 'Canadian Girl' that points to the spectral horns that haunt Lisbon's 'Stranded.' Yet I listen to You & Me more often because it means more to me, has become for me what Blood On The Tracks was for Dylan fans back in the 70s. This is music for that moment when you wake up in the morning and have briefly forgotten that you no longer have a girlfriend. This is music for people who react to loss by turning insular and wanting to travel the world. This is music for lonely Sunday nights and defeated Monday mornings. Yet this, too, is music for accepting yourself and starting to put the pieces back together. It's music for wanting to compare a new love's beauty to something, and you're only able to grasp for a strange line like how (to paraphrase 'Red Moon') on this night she shines like the steel on your knife. It's music for knowing you can never see someone again for your own good, and finally accepting this must be.

5 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

The Walkmen- Lisbon

Remember when you were younger? “Younger” as in, before you had a job and relied on holiday and birthday gifts to get the things that would entertain you for most of the year? It seemed like such a drag at the time, I know, but it was a double edged sword: whether or not the toy/videogame/album/sweater you got was any good, you had to wring every possible milliliter of enjoyment out of it because it was all you were going to get for a long time. I distinctly remember a point in junior high when my music collection consisted of four albums. I liked them all, sure, but more importantly, I had them literally memorized because, other than CDs I borrowed from the library and the radio, they were all the music I had access to. I no longer follow the Foo Fighters and don't own a copy of The Colour And The Shape any more, but even when I merely glance over the tracklisting, I can still hear the songs in my head. As I write this, I'm 26 years old, and I have hundreds of albums at my fingertips, with thousands more available online via legal and illegal means. But how many of those albums can I say I know as well as that damn Foo Fighters one I haven't heard in more than a decade?

I'm not saying I miss those days, mind you. It's just that this is something I've been thinking about lately thanks to Lisbon. See, I listen to a lot of music in the process of trying to stay abreast of new stuff as well as catch up on the old, so I can't possibly spend as much time with each album as I did during my junior high days. In some strange way, though, listening to Lisbon has brought me back to my meager four CD collection era and taught me an important lesson: the best albums aren't the ones that immediately grab you; aren't the ones that grow on you; aren't the ones that signal earthshaking changes in music. No, they're the ones that are so sublime, so flawlessly enjoyable that by their own excellence they compel you to listen over and over until you know them inside and out. You don't have the juvenile desperation and boredom of listening to the same thing for the umpteenth time because it's all you own. Rather, you have the haggard, starving need to hear those certain sounds, those specific turns of phrase and sparkling melodies, because they have captured you: constantly bubbling up, unbidden, from your subconscious while you're at work or doing the dishes.

Hell, the second side of Lisbon just finished playing and my mind is already starting side one again; the meandering guitar line of 'Juveniles' hitches itself to the Walkmen receptors in my brain, a tide of endorphins issued when the “you're one of us, or one of them” refrain comes up. The band's surf rock fascination reaches its peak here, with 'Angela Surf City' and 'Woe Is Me' the most obvious appearances, and much of the album's guitar tone is reminiscent of this music. However, Lisbon is not a surf rock album in the same way Bossanova by the Pixies, though often redolent of surf rock, wasn't one, either. I'd be remiss not to mention the eerie mariachi horns on 'Stranded', a song that has the perfect production and feel to be used in a revisionist Western or eccentric love story. 'While I Shovel The Snow', a languid winter dream that is only vocals and a chiming guitar, contributes further proof that the Walkmen are the undisputed masters of stripped down, no frills music making. Despite an intro suggesting a balls-out rock song like 'The Rat', 'Blue As Your Blood' is actually a haunting bummer ballad with lovely lyrics (“the sky above/is blue as your blood/black is the color of your eyelash/Spanish is the language of your tongue”) and what is arguably Hamilton Leithauser's best vocal performance to date. Speaking of, Lisbon is very similar to Beach House's Teen Dreaminsofar as both are among the year's best albums as well as showcasing their vocalists in full bloom.

Lisbon was named after the city, of course, and this album was inspired by visits the Walkmen took there...though it was recorded in the States. Still, this is the same city that Panda Bear moved to, and inspired his Person Pitch album...though none of it was recorded there, either (as far as I know). I don't meant to compare the two albums, but it does make me wish more bands would go there if this is the kind of music that results. Lisbon is one of those albums...a masterpiece, let's say. It's old fashioned but in a timeless sort of way. It's not flashy or show off-y but nonetheless commands your respect with its graceful, masterful, top-of-their-game song craft. Most tellingly, I can't stop listening to it; unlike my junior high days, it's because I want to rather than because Ihave to.

5 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

The Walkmen- Bows + Arrows

Had history taken a different course, the Walkmen may never have existed. Three of its member were in the beloved and much hyped Jonathan Fire*Eater in the 90s, a group many predicted to be the next big thing in rock. Since their retro-styled sound borrowed from many bands that critics loved but the public ignored, it seemed a self fulfilling prophecy when their major label debut didn't change the world. Instead, they fell apart and the New York bands they influenced—most notably The Strokes—would go on to “save rock and roll” in the early 00s with fairly similar music. Ultimately, though, I think our particular branch of history was the better one, since the Walkmen went on to be one of the most reliably great traditionalist rock bands ever.

Economy is the word that pops into my mind when I listen to the Walkmen, and their most economical music of all (at least that I've heard) is found onBows + Arrows. Their so-far masterpiece, all of its songs make as spare use as possible of the traditional 60s/70s rock set-up of guitars, bass, drums, organs, and vocals. Spoon rightly get credit and love for their stripped down Kill The Moonlight, but The Walkmen are the true masters of this approach. The best known song from this album, 'The Rat', is downright indulgent by their standards, with its walls of organ, guitar, and a propulsive drum beat. True, it's a fantastic song, arguably one of the most essential of the last decade, but in my book it's got nothing on '138th Street', which is composed of only a guitar and vocals, or the moments on the title track when the full band gives way to shuffling drums, majestic organ chords, and Hamilton Leithauser's restrained laments. To a first time listener, his ragged, straining voice may start out being the band's worst aspect, but soon the depth of expression and honesty of the performances win you over.

Similar to my initial experience with The National, the Walkmen at first seemed pretty basic and forgettable. The National eventually won me over with excellent songwriting and meticulous song craft, while Bows + Arrows taught me to love the Walkmen by showing how a band can maximize the effect of every single sound at their disposal by only using them when necessary. Just as often as not, songs or sections of songs will make due without something just because they can. 'No Christmas While I'm Talking' seems to float in the air around the 2:40 mark when only reverb drenched guitar and a plaintive organ linger like two flares piercing the night sky. They wring a lot of sound out of their self imposed limitations, and it makes the things they do play more imaginative and interesting. Listen closely to the drums on 'The North Pole' or the way they continually use keyboards and guitars as often as keepers of the melody as they do textural aids. When the band do go for the moments of full five member abandon, they sound that much larger than life because you've been trained to think of only a couple instruments and vocals as a fleshed out sound.

The Walkmen inspire people to say things like “they just keep getting better” whenever one of their albums comes out, consistently earning stellar reviews but rarely winning the top spot on album of the year lists. Perhaps it's their fate due to their rugged charm and old fashioned style. Who else would release something as great as A Hundred Miles Off and on a whim follow it up a few months later with a pretty good cover of the entire P*ssy Cats album by John Lennon and Harry Nilsson? No one but the Walkmen, just as no one but the Walkmen could make Bows + Arrows. If this one doesn't turn out to be their masterpiece for the ages, then I'll be genuinely happy, because it's hard to imagine them topping it.

5 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5

The National- High Violet

Much like The Walkmen, The National are a band who never elicited much interest in me based purely on reviews and word of mouth. In this era of sub-genres and sub-sub-genres, I've developed something of a mental block against bands who have a timeworn, classicist sound that can't reliably be labelled anything other than rock or indie rock. There's something...plain and uninteresting about them, or so my logic goes. And then I actually listen to them and end up loving them. It may have taken until 2010 for me to get around to The National, but they jumped to the top of my long, long list of bands to explore in further detail. High Violet is simply that good, though you may have to take my recommendation on faith.

That's because on first listen, much of High Violet passes by without making an impression. It feels like eleven versions of the same idea, with a seemingly limited palette of sounds and tempos further compounding the problem. Sticking with the album, however, soon overturns these notions. What hooked me, and what has continually kept me coming back, is the album's sheer sense of craftsmanship and songwriting consistency. The National's last album came out in 2007, and while they didn't spend that entire span of time working on High Violet, you'd believe it if someone told you they had. This is an album that was labored over, every element of sound molded until it was just right. The lyrics brim with interesting, sometimes abstract imagery, avoiding cliché and obvious sentiment but still connecting with the listener.

On High Violet, The National sound like the result of an experiment to combine the emotional resonance and cresting majesties of, say, Arcade Fire with the chilly, atmospheric production of the first Interpol album. 'Anyone's Ghost' could pass for a Turn On The Bright Lights outtake, with its up-front post-punk bass and lyrics about going out at night with headphones on, Matt Berninger's airy baritone aimed as much at his feet as it is the microphone. Album closer 'Vanderlyle Crybaby Geeks', meanwhile, bears the lonesome high melodies and surprisingly solid hooks of a lost Bon Iver track (he may be doing the backing vocals for all I know, since he guests on the album).

The songs of High Violet have an orchestral and cinematic underpinning that feels like a natural development from The National's last album, Boxer. 'Runaway', in fact, is begging to be used in a movie during the post-break up montage sequence of a 20-something romantic lead. This is also a nocturnal album through and through, but more in a “I can't sleep because I've got a lot on my mind” way than a creepy, brooding way. Which is why Massive Attack'sMezzanine and The xx's self titled album kept coming to my mind while listening to High Violet. They all share a certain atmosphere and vibe that goes well with those nights where you can't sleep because of something (or someone) that's on your mind. It wouldn't be much of a stretch to picture Massive Attack's take on the aptly named 'Sorrow', a dour lament about lost love. But no, these songs belong to The National. It's hard to imagine anyone else delivering the stunning middle three songs of this album, 'Afraid Of Everyone', 'Bloodbuzz Ohio', and 'Lemonworld', or the sounds-weird-in-concept-but-is-nowhere-near-that-morose 'Conversation 16', with its dream-like lyrics that somehow encompass romance, zombies, and suicide.

High Violet is not the most immediate, flashy, revolutionary, or controversial release, but it doesn't want to be. Instead it's just a damn fine piece of music, one that may not instantly win you over, but—you'll have to take my word for it—one that is also worth the time and effort to enjoy.

5 Poorly Drawn Stars Out Of 5