danverlinde (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} danverlinde) wrote,@ 2008-10-01 17:50:00 |
|
You & Me at hello
Artist: The Walkmen
Album: You & Me
Released: August 19th, 2008
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
I have to admit that I never thought the Walkmen could release a superior album to Bows and Arrows. Or at least no album would overwhelm the primacy effect that that album had etched, becoming my standard of comparison for all their work. You & Me has certainly made me reconsider this position.
I can still remember the first time I heard The Walkmen, Bows & Arrows spilling out of the speakers of Cat's Music (a Knoxville music store where I used to buy CD's. Remember CD's?). At the time I was just visiting Knoxville, now my place of residence, and had neglected to bring enough music for the 8 hour car ride back to Michigan. I stopped to pick up a few albums I'd been craving, and stumbled into a scene from High Fidelity. You know the one where the savvy, hipster, music store employee educates the uninformed patron about a band; first by playing the albums most infectious hook over the ceiling-mounted speakers, then by describing the band in utter superlatives. (Full disclosure, I also fell in love with The Beta Band, the band featured in that scene where John Cusack vows, "I will now sell five copies of the Beta Band's Three EPs").
Still the Walkmen's latest album is just more interesting than anything they have done before. Hamilton Leithauser is still there, crooning like Bob Dylan and Greg Dulli's lovechild. There is no doubt his dissonant vocals differentiate The Walkmen from so many other bands. But the diversity in the songwriting on You & Me stands apart from their past work, making it perhaps less cohesive, but at the same time far more inviting than past albums where songs often ran together in tempo and tone.
The perfectly produced On the Water is a tense and rousing indie rock gem; Canadian Girl and Donde Esta La Playa exert patience in delivering their bass driven melodies; and Four Provinces will make you want to dance the Flamenco. But The Walkmen still deliver their subversive, yet anthemic, style of rock on tracks like In The New Year and Postcards From Tiny Island. Each song on this album is interesting on its own, creating a must own album as a Gestalt.
Artist: The Walkmen
Album: You & Me
Released: August 19th, 2008
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
I have to admit that I never thought the Walkmen could release a superior album to Bows and Arrows. Or at least no album would overwhelm the primacy effect that that album had etched, becoming my standard of comparison for all their work. You & Me has certainly made me reconsider this position.
I can still remember the first time I heard The Walkmen, Bows & Arrows spilling out of the speakers of Cat's Music (a Knoxville music store where I used to buy CD's. Remember CD's?). At the time I was just visiting Knoxville, now my place of residence, and had neglected to bring enough music for the 8 hour car ride back to Michigan. I stopped to pick up a few albums I'd been craving, and stumbled into a scene from High Fidelity. You know the one where the savvy, hipster, music store employee educates the uninformed patron about a band; first by playing the albums most infectious hook over the ceiling-mounted speakers, then by describing the band in utter superlatives. (Full disclosure, I also fell in love with The Beta Band, the band featured in that scene where John Cusack vows, "I will now sell five copies of the Beta Band's Three EPs").
Still the Walkmen's latest album is just more interesting than anything they have done before. Hamilton Leithauser is still there, crooning like Bob Dylan and Greg Dulli's lovechild. There is no doubt his dissonant vocals differentiate The Walkmen from so many other bands. But the diversity in the songwriting on You & Me stands apart from their past work, making it perhaps less cohesive, but at the same time far more inviting than past albums where songs often ran together in tempo and tone.
The perfectly produced On the Water is a tense and rousing indie rock gem; Canadian Girl and Donde Esta La Playa exert patience in delivering their bass driven melodies; and Four Provinces will make you want to dance the Flamenco. But The Walkmen still deliver their subversive, yet anthemic, style of rock on tracks like In The New Year and Postcards From Tiny Island. Each song on this album is interesting on its own, creating a must own album as a Gestalt.
