Walkmen
(Gigantic Music)
Good times always seem to pass The Walkmen by. The band’s anachronistic noir evokes the loneliest Christmas (a recurring musical and lyrical topic) on Earth. Singer-guitarist Hamilton Leithauser chokes out his creaky songs from an imagined dark, lonely room. The echoes are spine-chilling – each note dances and shimmers with the emboldened memory of a past lover.
The Walkmen is an auteur rock group in the purist sense of the term. Within seconds of anything the band has recorded, there is absolutely no question as to whose song it is. Yet for all the talent and distinct identity The Walkmen possess, they have been utterly incapable of producing one completely stable album.
That is, until now. Where their previous three albums (not including the absurd song-for-song cover of Harry Nilsson’s Pussy Cats) all suffer from “third act” issues, You & Me remains compelling, devastating from beginning to end. It’s an epic downer – 14 songs, just over 51 minutes – and a bit top-heavy at that, but for all the Walkmen true believers who have never quite given up, this is the album the band was destined to make.
Incorporating some of the wider arrangements used on 2006’s A Hundred Miles Off, The Walkmen have subtly tweaked their sound to near-perfection. Even the more ornate compositions are rooted in fairly simple rhythms and repetitions. Nothing on You & Me is too far off from what we’ve already heard from the band – but the stronger material makes all the difference down the stretch.
Just past the half-way point, “Canadian Girl” mixes all the nostalgia and misery of an up-and-down relationship spun ‘round a carousel of instruments. The 50s jukebox bass line and delicate piano bounces along under a small horn section. “And only I still call you mine”, Leithauser croons quietly, with certain doubt.
As the album title suggests, You & Me is about two people; maybe the same couple or perhaps many different doomed beau and belles. Whatever Leithauser and company intended, their cast of characters seem wrapped in melancholy, fated to endure an endless winter beginning now, in August.
In an icy breath, Leithauser pleads on “Long Time Ahead of Us”, “Take me tonight as I am/ Leave me the way I was found/ Moonlight, oh moonlight help me sleep.” He doesn’t even need to mention the “you” until the end of the song. Her presence is clear in the narrator’s insomnia, underscored by a flurry of guitar and the low patter of organ and drums.
Though the happy endings are few and far between – arguably non-existent – the music on You & Me is sublime. “In The New Year” releases the bulk of its angst in an incredibly memorable (and oddly uplifting) organ refrain. Leithauser supplies the rest, courtesy of his bruised wail. His vocals ride the line between a declaration of love and a cry for help, still so much a part of the signature Walkmen sound.
Album opener “Dónde está la Playa” and “On The Water” channel Leonard Cohen’s haunted early recordings with the latter veering off into a finale worthy of Morricone’s “Man with No Name” scores. The Walkmen may have come up around the same time and place as The Strokes, but they sure as hell don’t have to sound like it.
Anything but another band of VU-pillaging, sun-glasses-at-night New Yorkers, The Walkmen finally have an album to match their aspirations. You & Me is the calling card the band has been building to since it spawned out of the ashes of Jonathan Fire*Eater.
Uncompromisingly bleak – the closing song opens with, “If only it were true/ I would go with you” – You & Me eschews Hollywood sex and romance for something far more sorrowful and reflective. The truth rarely hurts this good, so savor it while it lasts.
Standout Tracks: “On The Water,” “In The New Year,” “Canadian Girl” ZACHARY HERRMANN
