The Walkmen
Heaven
Fat Possum
2012
Rating: 6 pepper plants out of 10
I've liked The Walkmen for a long time, and I dug Jonathan Fire*Eater before that, but I'm not all that enthusiastic for their new record "Heaven." The defining heavy organ use is still there and Hamilton Leithauser's vocals still dominate their sound, but something about them isn't clicking for me anymore. Too clean? Too adult? Maybe it's Phil Ek's production that is sitting weird with me, but then again he's been gold with everything Built to Spill has released. Maybe I just hit my internal quota for Walkmen songs, and I'm not willing to give up their "Bows + Arrows" or "A Hundred Miles Off" memories and replace it with these new songs. New track "Nightingales" comes the closest to capturing that old magic for me, but there are just too many tracks here that come and go and leave no impression. This isn't a bad record though, and certainly many people will enjoy it. It might find it's way to a few car commercials. It probably won't find it's way back to my ears too terribly often, instead choosing one of their older works if I'm in the mood.
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