As I sit to review The Walkmen's new album, Bows & Arrows, I realize that I've lent it out, for the first time, overnight. Not that I'm hopeless without the CD on hand; I've lived with it at my side and in various CD players (car, work, home, friend's houses) since getting it. My attachment wasn't to the whole record, but to one song in particular. That track, "The Rat", raises the bar for how intense and energizing a song can be. For those familiar with the Walkmen's slow, sparse, morose side (evident on their first release on Startime International, Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone), this song presents a quicker-paced, adrenaline-filled Walkmen. Singer Hamilton Leithauser's voice, like a more intense and constipated Bono in the early U2 days, projects agony on the back-and-forth confusion of a relationship as he sings "You've got a nerve to be asking a favor/You've got a nerve to be calling my number/I know we've been through this before". The song's quickened pace--with double-time hi-hat and ringing guitars--catches its breath eventually, but builds again like lust enflamed by make-up sex.
As for the rest of the record, well, it's good. Its dark, looming atmospheres remain (if you're still fishing for a reference: slow down and stretch an Interpol song, and add more space, ringing guitars and drawled vocals), but the songs have more hooks (their songwriting has definitely improved). The Walkmen have a unique sound, largely due to vocals, but it takes some getting used to. This record, like the last, requires the listener to be in a particular mood (one I don't find myself in much of the time), somewhere between a somber state and a willingness to be challenged. Bows & Arrows does offer another quick-paced track with "Little House Of Savages" (where the drums stand out), and the end of the record steps it up with some nice compositions, especially "New Year's Eve". Musically, this track transports me to some wintry landscape (is that sleigh bells in the song?), say to the ski slopes in Sweden or Oktoberfest in Germany, and has me drunkenly swaying to its organ and piano with a circle of intoxicated Europeans.
Did I mention the strength of the second track on the record, "The Rat"? I'm not alone in my praise, as it also happens to be the first single (perhaps you caught them perform it on Conan). This album is worth checking out, even if it ends up being the one kick-ass song. But I recommend giving the rest time to soak in.
-Mike Locke