It was a big music week this week with a slew of tickets to coveted upcoming shows being acquired (MMJ, the Hives, Damien Rice, Gregory Alan Isakov), as well as a pair of shows from long-time, frequently seen faves that made for some good nights on the town (Jeff Tweedy, the Walkmen), and it’s the back half of this latter section that inspired me to pop in and ramble for a bit. Not simply because it was solid show from one of my overall faves (every album they released during the blog years has landed on my year-end lists, and at least two of the three that predate it likely would have as well), but moreso because for a long time it seemed like it would never happen again.
That’s because the band stopped releasing music a decade ago and while they insist they never broke up (the term bassist Peter Matthew Bauer used at the time was “extreme hiatus”) it certainly seemed like there was little to no desire to form back up. (For what it’s worth the confused vehemence shown to those who said they’d broken up never made much sense to me — if you left your marriage or job for ten years and spent the time fu#$ing/working for others, I’m pretty sure neither your spouse nor employer think you’re coming back…) Frontman Hamilton Leithauser walked even farther down the path charted on the band’s last two albums and became a full-on crooner, releasing three solo albums. (Four if you count the 2015 collab he did with guitarist Paul Maroon that was only released widely this year, Dear God.) Drummer Matt Barrick played with bands like the Fleet Foxes, Sharon van Etten, and the excellent Muzz. (Their debut landed at #4 on my 2020 list, as well as my “best of 15” one.) Pianist/organist Walter Martin started making children’s music. The aforementioned Maroon moved to Spain and started recording classical music, while Bauer recorded three solo albums of his own. (The latest of which landed at #12 on last year’s list.)
All of this gave the very reasonable appearance that the beloved band of gunslingers known as the Walkmen was a thing of the past — exceptional for the duration of their five-albums-in-eight-years run, but no more. So when word suddenly came out last year that they were going to do a small number of reunion shows, it seemed too good to be true. At first it was just going to be a handful of shows in NY, their base of operations before the band made it big. When those two shows quickly sold out, they added a third, then a fourth, then a fifth. When all those sold out, they decided to hit a few other choice locations — some shows in Philly where Barrick now lives (one night became two became three), some shows in DC where Leithauser and Martin grew up and the band cut their teeth in earlier incarnations (one night quickly became four), some shows in Chicago where everyone knows the smartest, best looking, and hardest working humans live (one night also became four). And so on.
Add a few noteworthy festival slots — first just at home in Boston and Atlanta, then a few abroad — and the snowball just keeps going. Reception has been so good the band just added a third (and final?) leg to their tour, heading out west for some shows in California, Oregon, and Washington after a small number of additional shows around those overseas festivals. So it was against this backdrop of surprised gratitude that I went to the opening show of their four night stand this week, not expecting the fiery performances of a decade prior, but just a pleasant reunion with a long-lost fave.
And despite not practicing before their tour (the band somewhat proudly boasted of not rehearsing before their televised return on Colbert to kick off the tour) the band more than met my expectations. Ham’s ability to unleash the unbridled banshee wails of yore appears to be largely gone, which is unsurprising even without the rust logically accrued in a ten year absence (going to see the band always involved a bit of mystery as you were never sure which version of his voice would show up — the one that could nail those notes in the stratosphere and send shivers down your spine, or a slightly diminished one that would hoarsely, gamely try anyway). And while that element may have mostly been missing (he still managed to bring it on a few of the songs), the rest of the band was more than able to conjure that murky, underwater atmosphere that was such a key element to their sound around him.
They played over twenty songs, leaning heavily on their two crown jewels Bows + Arrows and You & Me (more on these in a second), but pulled at least a track or two from all five of their albums so gave a good reminder of the highlights from their exceptionally solid catalog. What was new was the sincere sense of gratitude the band seemed to have with Leithauser relating their surprise at how many folks were excited to see them and the number of shows they were selling out, necessitating their multi-night stands during his between songs banter. (One of the reasons he cited was his and the other bandmates’ kids not knowing about the band and wanting to show them some of the old shine — the age old parents’ conundrum. (“Oh you think I’m lame now, eh? Well you shoulda seen me when…”))
In honor of this unexpected return, I decided it was time to play not one but two of our favorite games here — “WHO’S ON TOP?” and “Gimme Three Steps.” Not simply because they’re one of my favorite bands, but because I also sold one of my tickets to someone who like the band’s kids had never listened to them before and I wanted to let them know what they were walking into. (Not that I think anyone in their right mind would want to pull the ripcord after hearing these guys live, but I wanted to make sure just in case.) As a result, I enlisted the help of fellow diehard (and former Sunbeam) Scooter to pick not only our three most representative songs for the band so this person didn’t go in cold, but also to rank their albums to guide their, and any other new initiates’ listening.
We’ll start with the latter, the three song prelude we gave them before the show. For those who might not remember, the rules of the game are simple — no obvious hits, no doubling up on albums, and no fixating on a single element of a band’s/artist’s style. You’ve got to assume people already know the hits and if you focus too much on a single sound or album you might lose your argument if that doesn’t resonate with the person you’re pitching. You really only need to connect with one song, not all three, to potentially make them a fan and change their life forever. (No pressure.) So with that seemingly simple backdrop — just pick three songs! — Scoot and I struggled to come up with the below recommendations. And unlike in some other iterations of this game (“you picked what?! You’re insane…”, I fully endorse his picks and nearly had several of them in mine.
The Drawing of Three:
- New Year’s Eve, All Hands and the Cook, Canadian Girl (Scoot)
- We’ve Been Had, Little House of Savages, Red Moon (Sunshine)
And because the task was so hard and we went back and forth so much with our selections, we both actually had an alternate set at the ready that I thought I’d share as well (honestly there’s about five other iterations I could dole out here and I’m sure the same goes for Scoot):
The Drawing of Three, Part II:
- On the Water, Victory, Stranded (Scoot)
- Thinking of a Dream I Had, Four Provinces, Torch Song (Sunshine)
Now that the “easy” part was finished it was time to tackle the far harder task of ranking the band’s albums. As I mentioned before, three of the six landed on year end lists here (including one at the top) and arguably each of the ones that predate the blog would have done so as well. It’s partly why their departure was such an unfortunate, unexpected thing — from the time they got started the band released a new album every two years like clockwork and then — POOF — they were gone. And I must say, we’ve played this game a few times before (in print, at least) — for MMJ, for Radiohead, for Tweedy’s Wilco — and it’s never been as contentious as this. Several of these albums could easily switch places depending on the day and/or be deemed ties (which they very nearly were in several cases), so think it’s worth noting just how solid they all are — you really can’t pick a bad place to start.
And so with that, here’s the breakdowns to guide future listens (for old-timers and noobs alike) — since he’s the guest, we’ll start with Scoot. We’re pretty comparable at the end of the day — we agree on the top and the bottom, but have some differences in the middle to keep things interesting. I put his comments in parenthesis because I had many of the same conversations in my head as I went through this:
Scooter’s Six:
- You & Me (“By a nose hair. I think it is the perfect bridge between the old and new sound. Bow + Arrows at its best is better, but this album is deeper IMO and is so strong top to bottom”)
- Bow + Arrows (“Quintessential Walkmen sound. I went back and fort several times here and would list them as a tie if I were looking to cop out.”)
- Lisbon (“Shoulders above anything else that follows and the peak of the crooner era.”)
- Heaven (“This was also a near tie [with the following album]. Thought it was soft at first but it grew on me. Some lame songs, but tons of ear worms here too.”)
- A Hundred Miles Off (“Still a great album with some of my favorite sleepers on it. If you asked me again it could be #4.”)
- Everyone who Pretended to Like me is Gone (“This album never did a ton for me. maybe a little too rough around the edges. Still some great moments, but also has the most stuff I don’t want to listen to. “We’ve Been Had” is an awesome song though.”)
El Seis de Sunshine:
- You & Me — similar to Scoot, this one gets the edge over Arrows by the narrowest of margins. Ultimately it wins because of the breadth of sound — this very much is the band transitioning into its elegant, languid crooner era of the final two albums — but I think its high points actually surpass those of Arrows and it stands as the perfect representation of the band’s signature sounds: part lurching, ominous excavation of some deep sea creature, part taut, anxious attack of fiery guitars and vocals. As I wrote before, this one’s “pure smoldering brilliance.”
- Bow + Arrows — this one contains their biggest hit, but it succeeds for me almost in spite of that ubiquitous track. As I wrote before, this is “the height of the shambling days of yore with songs that sounded like the band woke up on the floor of the bar and started playing whatever instrument was nearest them.” This is the epitome of what a hangover sounds/feels like — bleary-eyed, exhausted, and aching.
- A Hundred Miles Off — this one is a bit of a lightning rod. It was pretty universally panned as “a disappointment” at the time, but I’ve always loved it for several of the things folks criticized — its high, at times unhinged energy (the often overlooked Barrick’s drumming is absolutely ripshit here. Just listen to tracks like “Tenley Town” and “Always After You” and try to keep up. Positively furious…), which are matched if not surpassed by Ham’s throat-shredding vocals (another closet fave is “This Job is Killing Me,” which I’ve tried to mimic several times over the years when my job was doing the same to me). It also has some of the elements that would become more pronounced in later years — the horns of “Louisiana,” the “sad prom” (according to Ham) crooning of “Another One Goes By” and “Brandy Alexander.” Both in title and sound this one always struck me as a deliberate departure from the acclaim that came from their previous outing’s hit (a la Nirvana on In Utero) and I’ve always loved the messy rawness of this one. (It speaks to my inner rebel/punk) It’s when the hangover of Arrows hits its angry/awful afternoon hours…
- Lisbon — this one was the second near-tie of the list, just getting edged out by its predecessor. As Scoot notes it’s the peak of the crooner phase of the band’s last two albums and easily my favorite of the two (though ironically Heaven landed higher on the year-end list). As I wrote at the time, this is “the sonic equivalent to blissfully floating downstream, bathed in full sunshine…These slink out of your speakers and put you out to sea, flat on your back and smiling.” Who’s gonna argue with that?
- Heaven — if the previous album was the sound of a band boldly starting a new chapter, this was the sound of them drawing it all to a close. You didn’t need to know about all the difficulties recording over the years and the fatigue from constant touring — just listening to this one you could tell the band was maybe thinking it was time for a break. Thankfully it’s not in the form of a slew of subpar songs, but rather a band drawing on all its elements as a final summation for the record. As I wrote at the time, “What makes these guys so amazing is how they’ve incorporated and sharpened those early elements — the dark, nervous moodiness, [Ham’s] soaring vocals, the killer guitar work and drumming — into their new sound [“the smooth, self-assured, almost lounge-y vibe”] and added to it, shifting effortlessly between the styles from song to song.” This was a band going out on their own terms, with full command of their many powers.
- Everyone who Pretended to Like me is Gone — despite landing at the bottom for both Scoot’s and my lists, that’s in no way to indicate it’s a bad album. There’s definitely the roughness that Scoot mentioned that’s evident — it’s clearly a band still tinkering with the formula, but not quite mastering the levels yet. That said, it has some killer tracks on it — aside from the aforementioned “We’ve Been Had” and “Wake Up” (the album’s two best known songs and the first two things they wrote, amazingly, according to Ham at the show the other night) there’s also winners like “The Blizzard of ’96,” “French Vacation,” and the title track to draw you in. It’s a solid glimpse of what’s to come…