Of all of the bands that burst from New York within the early ’00s, The Walkmen had been the least outlined by locale. Town’s nervy post-punk heritage fed straight into the type of music popularised by The Strokes, Interpol and Yeah Yeah Yeahs, simply as its dynamic membership tradition motored LCD Soundsystem and The Rapture. The Walkmen, against this, appeared aligned to a different place and time.
This can be partly as a consequence of pure geography. All 5 members – Hamilton Leithauser, Paul Maroon, Walter Martin, Matt Barrick and Peter Bauer – had initially met at college and performed in bands round Washington DC, 200-odd miles away. Extra pertinently although, there was a shared predilection for classic gear and studio dynamics patented throughout the first flush of rock’n’roll. As soon as in New York, having shaped from the remnants of Jonathan Hearth*Eater and The Recoys, The Walkmen provided a riveting (if typically wayward) mixture of ’60s minimalism and voluminous artwork rock, at its most potent on 2004’s killer single “The Rat”.
By 2006, nonetheless, after deciding to chop an advert hoc model of Harry Nilsson and John Lennon’s 1974 album Pussy Cats, the band appeared to have misplaced their method. Their label subsequently dropped them. Towards a dangerous backdrop – no file firm, studio or supervisor – The Walkmen began work on what grew to become You & Me.
Adversity had a profound impact. Written over two years, with band members break up between New York and Philadelphia, The Walkmen tapped into the spirit of their favorite information from the late ’50s and early ’60s for inspiration: Elvis, Roy Orbison, Johnny Money, Buddy Holly. The brand new songs left house between the grooves, permitting for echoey atmosphere and a moody sense of abstraction. There was recent adventurism too, with guitarist Paul Maroon including considered brass and strings.
You & Me seems like a grand assertion. The Walkmen show themselves nonetheless able to a fierce racket, however Leithauser comes into his personal as an anguished balladeer, heightened by Maroon’s cavernous guitar and drummer Matt Barrick’s extraordinary percussion. Certainly, Barrick is the album’s secret weapon, creating syncopated rhythms and textures that steer these songs in the direction of one thing extra expressionist in tone.
“Dónde Está La Playa” emerges from a murky begin right into a collection of clattery peaks and ominous lulls, Leithauser’s flailing confessional mapping out an emotional world of booze, partying and doomed romance: “I do know that you simply’re married, rings in your hand/So I didn’t keep ’til the tip”. The commanding “On The Water” is equally locked in despair, the narrator heading dwelling, in all probability drunk, beneath a swinging skyline, branches bending low. Leithauser seems like a wounded Dylan, the music gathering round him in a busy storm.
He’s nonetheless dreaming of dwelling as “Pink Moon” looms into view. Leithauser yearns to be beside his cherished one, his baleful tones mirrored by Maroon’s lonely trumpet, echoing throughout an empty night time. The lyrics are hopeful, but undercut by warning metaphors: riptides, darkness, gentle glinting from a metal knife. Even Leithauser’s optimism (and there’s a good deal of it) seems misplaced. The booming avant-rock of “In The New 12 months” – set to squealing organ and flashing guitars – seems to be ahead to a recent begin however its protagonist’s phrases ring hole. “I do know that it’s true/It’s gonna be an excellent 12 months”, yelps Leithauser at his most impassioned. “Out of the darkness/And into the fireplace”. And by the point of penultimate observe “I Misplaced You” (a Motown-ish marvel with Barrick in imperious type), the river’s overflowing, the home is burning down and Leithauser is pleading for a lifeline.
Within the spring of 2009, almost a 12 months after You & Me’s launch, The Walkmen decamped to Memphis to movie a session at Solar Studios for PBS. The hitherto unreleased tracks lastly seem on this version. The important thing distinction, other than the environment, is the addition of a five-piece horn part, led by ex-Bar-Kays trumpeter Ben Cauley, the only survivor of the aircraft crash that worn out Otis Redding and his bandmates in 1967.
There are variations on tracks from You & Me (together with an admirably funky “Canadian Woman”), although the spotlight is a barely older Walkmen tune, “Louisiana”. It’s a beautiful second, like The VU’s “I’ll Be Your Mirror” reimagined as humid Stax soul, rising into an immense finale. And whereas the periods would straight encourage their subsequent effort, 2010’s Lisbon, The Walkmen have You & Me to thank for ushering within the superior second part of their profession. They might not be round, however this album proves they nonetheless matter.
