Category : Music

i dont know what all these lameass music journalists keep rambling about, but this new album bores me at best. and i’m an actual walkmen fan too.

when i listen to it, i feel like i’m at a crappy high school prom in california circa 1983 and these guys are the band. i can see the silver streamers line the stage…

i’m not going to bother breaking this down track by track, because about 8 of them could actually BE the same track. i’m still waiting on the lab results to find out. i’ll keep you posted. the only reason anyone likes any track on this album is because “The Rat” actually sounds a little different from the rest of the tracks, giving it a false sense of originality, a joke which everyone seems to be falling for. in fact, the only thing original about “The Rat” is its name, which gives the tracklist a neu-Brothers Grimm feel. “The Rat” should be called “Janet’s Nipple of the Forest”

while the first walkmen album, Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone, was seemingly hours of exciting foreplay, this one seems to be stuck in the middle of a bad orgasm.

this album sounds like the Beverly Hillbillies car rolling down the road with its wobbly wheels, backfires, and crap stacked 20 feet tall. every song seems to have a few of those guitar rock noises that make you ask, “did they fall asleep in the studio while playing this song?”

a lot of the tracks bear the apparently-signature “walkmen live sound”, which translates to “unoriginal studio goofiness” instead of “warm, symbiotic flow.” i actually wondered, “why do they keep playing the same song?”

as for the “new york” sound that people try to label these guys with, that’s just wrong, wronger, and wrongest. the only thing remniscient of new york that this album has is its smug self-satisfaction of trying to combine 70′s “cool” with modern minimalism.

normally i’d recommend the walkmen to anyone, but i don’t want this album ruining my cred.

to call last night’s show a massive disappointment would be giving them too much anticipation value. there’s was nothing to let down, only room to impress.

but they didn’t.

it’d be cliche to blame it on the venue, so let’s blame it on the vocalist. a lousy singer of lackluster lyrics. the goofy, clangy guitar vomit didn’t help their cause either.

the crowd around us was a mixed blessing for sure. after we got mugged by a few purses, someone dropped a bad egg either in front of me or to my right. so we ganked a spot by the bar next to some former hotties, only to be ultimately surrounded by wolves. but one was in sheep’s clothing. some girl and her hat was the best human/clothing combination i’ve seen in almost a year. ridiculous washington would’ve bug-eyed.

and at least the bartender was anxiously serving alcoholic refreshments. and the food after the show hit the spot.

so the shins failed to ruin my evening, which is pretty impressive after all.

i’ve pretty much made my mind up that, regardless of my own personal feelings about it, postal service’s album Give Up will be one of the most important american indie pop albums of the next few decades.

the lyrics are the connection to rock while the music is the connection to electronica.

which is where music seems to be going.

despite all the bullshit degenerative retro.