Category:
Rock

Try if you like:
Clinic, Lower Dens, Pavement, Spoon, Titus Andronicus

No expectations is always the best way to come into an album. That's the way I came into You & Me, the new album from The Walkmen. They disappointed me with Hundred Miles Off even though my fellow reviewer thought it was the best thing ever. Regardless, I decided to check in with the band again and I get treated to a lovely quieted affair. The set starts out with "Donde Esta La Playa", a good standard Walkmen song but then on "Flamingos (for Colbert)" we get a guitar instrumental washed in signature Walkmen reverb. They offer up what could be my favorite track, a Dylan-esque "On The Water" next. "In The New Year" is quite the affair as well. It just has that climax that never seems to end, almost perfectly arranged. Sure, You & Me took a couple listens to really delve into but after that you get hooked. It's been the same for all of the Walkmen albums. This one, though, seems to have slightly reinvented the band, giving them a newfound vigor. 

I don't know why more bands haven't been copying the Walkmen sound, the one washed in reverb making such a wonderful smokey sound that almost any music would sound sensational. I never thought they would do this but The Walkmen have made an album even more impressive than Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone, an album that I still hold near and dear.