We'll go ahead and get this out of the way first, we'll clean house and we'll air things, like rugs, and opinions, and bedsheets. The Walkmen are one of the best bands is America. Yes they are. Their new record, You and Me, has been receiving strangely hesitant but positive reviews, as though people have (or at least are acting as if they have) forgotten about them, or as if they've released a string of bad records and are redeeming themselves with their latest. You'll see blog posts about the record that begin:
"I’ve always felt a little iffy about The Walkmen’s music. I think it’s because of their downright stubbornness to not stray from their “comfort zone.”'
(Ed.- Though, to be fair, this from a blog whose best new music is the new Rancid record, those models of adventuresome stylistic modification)
or:
"...since then I’ve sort of lost track of them. I know I have Bows & Arrows (2004), A Hundred Miles Off (2006), and even Pussy Cats (2006), and I remember enjoying each one...but they’ve all faded into the depths of my musical mind...seemingly lost forever..."
Fair enough, if one is willing to accept the constant shortening of contemporary attention spans.
The truth is that there are only a handful of bands with any significant measure of popularity who have been able to define themselves, aesthetically and thematically, in a meaningful way, along with Liars and Animal Collective, most importantly. Unfortunately, in the deceptively heated race to relevance in new media (deceptive in that it is created, maintained, and popularized only by those who engage in it's histrionics), true artistic progression is valued far less than it should be in favor of short-term publicity. Which means undue hype, which means that bands who'd rightly never have received any positive recognition become celebrated, or that unnecessary aesthetic shifts are hailed as artistic innovation.
Now, on their fifth LP, the Walkmen's sound is further defined and distillated: the guitars ring more clearly, the drums rumble with more power, the vocals sit higher, and the lyrics more athletic. All to say, of course, that the The Walkmen's aesthetic spirit quest continues, for the benefit of those among us possessing the requisite strength to fend off the entreaties of sweet smelling but lower hanging fruit.
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7 comments:
raise tha roof
I never pretended to like them. I actually think they somehow were worse that that previous hype band they were in.
The optimism this record allows I believe allows it a more proper and focussing review; as opposed to the pessimism of focusing on the ills of other reviewers; or contemporary culture's lack of a genuine and clearing view. Your site should walk in the leaves of it's higher intent: slings and arrows result in a place within the lines of those slings and arrows which you condemn: you needn't concern yourself. The occasion is a sublime and traveled record which deserves a more subtle light.
The Walkmen now, more than ever, allow themselves a comfort which is synonymous with artistic ease: a beautiful thing, in that creative perfection must be a result of the work creating it's own criteria; which bands like the Walkmen and Animal Collective manage so naturally. One will not find big game like "We've Been Had" and "House of Savages" on this record because the Walkmen have found a certain comfort in a simple rumination on their basic themes, both in content and aesthetics: travel, disillusion, patterns of weather, roads, land, drinks, the Northeast, relationship. I believe distillation is the wrong word, as it would entail a removal of inessential elements and their previous records had no inessential elements which to remove: they were in themselves wholly necessary. The difference between the first few records and this one is simply a comfort, a proper lack of ambition; it is in lacking ambition that one is able to speak in a natural voice, grown out of one's own soil, reared in one's own light, fecund and fertile. This the Walkmen embody and always have: but now more than ever they are natural: allowing themselves to grow by not guiding the course of their growth, by not banding their branches. The fruit, whether low or high, is the same, has uniformity: though those easy to reach are preferable. You needn't a high reach to enjoy this record, as it is natural and full of ease.
...and that has made all the difference.
Zing Zing Zing!
Anonymous:
Thank you very much. I feel, and am, fortunate that the review (or non-review, frankly, which you pointed out, and which I myself was conscious of doing), has generated such a thoughtful and properly critical reply. In addition, I am sure that the brain-trust behind HexEd (and it is not me) is grateful for the heft and broad back by which you have raised the discussion to a higher plane.
I do not intend this to be a rebuttal, because, truth be told, I agree with the majority of your comments. As such, the only response I'd like to offer stems perhaps more from misunderstanding, and more likely opaqueness on my part, than from disagreement.
Though 'distillation' was perhaps the wrong word choice, I still do believe in it's metaphorical veracity. The opaqueness, on my end, was in the unintentional implication that there are (or were) unnecessary elements to their aesthetic, which were thus remedied or removed in 'You And Me'. What remains, however, is the idea that this is the purest record The Walkmen have released, or more accurately, the purest example of the aesthetic The Walkmen have labored toward. Perhaps, at the most intangible level, our conceptions of aesthetic development differ: it seems to me that mine is vertical with spiritual undertones, while yours (and, of course, I am presuming, and accept the consequences of doing so knowingly) strikes me as more horizontal, or organic. Or at least, I gathered as much from your the facility of your use of the wonderful soil and tree metaphor.
Either way, at any or alternating rates, I think that we fundamentally agree on the virtues of The Walkmen, and 'You And Me', and I am, again, thankful to you for your response.
M.
why is everybody dedicating so many word to the walkmen?
Just heard this. Actually is not that bad.
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