Send "The Walkmen " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 The Walkmen are kings of dejection. For about decade now, they've turned their albums into symphonies of disappointment and resentment and regret. Their proudest moments, then, are also their most down-and-out. Their best song, "The Rat", is a world-weary, old-before-its-time rager, a song from a young guy seeing that he's already falling out of step with the universe and feeling pissed about it. Their second-best song, "In the New Year", sounds triumphant and optimistic at first, but on further listens it reveals itself to be as much a plea as anything else, a secular prayer that shit just please start working out right. The specific brand of desperation that the band conjures is miles away from, say, the throbbing, dread-laced depression of fellow dapper New Yorkers the National. The Walkmen are more theatrical and unwound than that-- they're the guys out in the middle of the street, screaming up at the sky, begging to know why everything always falls apart.In that elegantly disheveled mutter-wail thing of his, frontman Hamilton Leithauser starts new album Lisbon off by singing: "You're with someone else tomorrow night/ Doesn't matter to me/ 'Cause as the sun dies into the hill/ You got all I need." He's sad and pathetic and needy and yet somehow still smooth, which is sort of the central animating paradox at the heart of the Walkmen. They make these wounded, anxious songs, but they make them so confidently, with such unearthly rich-guy assurance. The band's specific style of indie rock is very rooted in a scrappy, scratchy New York tradition that dates back to the Velvet Underground or Bob Dylan, but their take on it is theirs and theirs alone. You know one of their songs right away when those winding, circular guitars and surging drums and gargling vocals kick in. They're so performative in their sadness, but that stuff never rankles or comes off tantrumy, since the band is just so good at this stuff. There's a song on Lisbon called "Woe Is Me", and it's not even remotely a joke. Great song, too. This is a band that cares deeply about things like microphone placement, and so everything sounds just unbelievably crisp and warm-- except when it's not supposed to, as on the purposefully weird, strangulated two-minute panic attack "Follow the Leader". And even though they sound very much like themselves throughout, there are some great variations in here. "Stranded" uses beaten-down mariachi horns to massively graceful effect. "Victory" (which, naturally, is about never achieving victory) has the same sort of blood-pounding chorus that "The Rat" does. "Torch Song" is a song about a song, about not knowing the right song to "calm down all the madness," but the amber Twin Peaks Angelo Badalamenti fuzz on the track is just heart-stopping gorgeous. The Walkmen know what they're doing here....full text |
| Tinymixtapes |
| There comes a time in every reviewer’s life when he/she has to admit that she/he is letting his/her feelings get in the way of an objective review. This, however, is not one of those times. Despite Lisbon's dullard-isms, which I will fully detail via the conclusion to this review and the shoddy “3” grade attached, The Walkmen have taken another step toward becoming the band we all knew they COULD/SHOULD/WOULD become. Unfortunately, I’m not sure how many will find this out, as “Juveniles” is a limp opening track that is so off-putting, especially compared to You & Me’s riveting opener “Donde Esta la Playa,” I’m surprised Lisbon isn’t their major-label debut. (And have you seen the YouTube clip of the W-men performing “Juveniles” at Sasquatch 2009? I feel fortunate that the song has improved as much as it has since then.) It has that generic quality to it where there’s nothing overt to criticize; maybe the first two plays are serviceable, but once you delve deeper, you realize there’s nothing there to hold your interest. Packing it in after one song is pathetic but typical in the MP3 age. (How else can you explain all these bands Making It on the strength of one, maybe two songs?) So if you, gentle, unassuming reader, take this path, I can only pity you, because Lisbon is The Walkmen’s warts-and-all, authentic step toward connecting their past (Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone) to their future (when they’re as big as Weezer and as respected as— damn, popular music SUCKS, I can’t even think of an example of a well-respected band. R.E.M. maybe?). That may sound cliché, but The Walkmen are one of those bands that brings out the Admirer in me, and if you don’t feel the same way, you haven’t been paying attention. And if you haven’t, it’s not too late. I’d say there’s no shame in going straight to Lisbon’s titular sources of heat, in this case “Follow the Leader” (anyone who mentions Korn gets a boot to the brain), “Blue as Your Blood,” “Woe is Me,” and “Stranded.” These four songs are the sturdy fulcrum on which the somewhat shaky Lisbon rests, and they’re as good a reason as any to jump on the bandwagon while the bandwagon’s still got room....full text |
| Consequenceofsound |
| In our rundown of 35 highly anticipated albums for the latter half of the year, I discussed this very album, which we knew virtually nothing about at the time. I noted the many similarities between The Walkmen and The National, from band makeup and location, to singer-swagger and career point. But where The National continue to rise to ever increasing heights, The Walkmen have spent their last three albums holding relevance like the precious gift that it is, with no real sign of going anywhere. And no, Lisbon, The Walkmen’s fifth full-length, is not High Violet. But, honestly, I’m not even sure High Violet is High Violet. The two records do have something major in common. Namely, that they seem to be realizations of their respective bands’ directions and destinations, realizations that took multiple records to develop. In the case of The Walkmen, this journey began with A Hundred Miles Off, their only record that didn’t overwhelmingly win over fans and media alike, mostly because it saw a drastic shift in tone from their early work. Horns appeared more often, vocalist Hamilton Leithauser seemed to relax, and the tempo slowed down. And though none of these were bad things, it wasn’t until You & Me that the band was able to focus these new leanings and create a truly great atmospheric record. Which brings us to Lisbon, where we get the polish and shine of guys who know what they are doing and finally have the experience to put it all together. From the jangly bounce of opener “Juveniles”, there is a change that is tough to put your finger on. It’s, well…happy. And though I can’t explain to you how the vintage musical instruments that the band is fond of using really sound compared to modern ones, I can tell you that this album finally attains the vintage quality they have always been searching for. The players all sound like they are standing in different rooms, where sometimes you are listening in with one band member (“Follow The Leader”, parts of “Torch Song”) and sometimes you are in a room apart, hearing the tunes from down the hall, a trip that might have taken decades....full text |
The Walkmen lyrics
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