The Walkmen - Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone

In musical criticism, it's become standard to partake in name-dropping, purporting that "X" band sounds like, is evocative of, or draws influence from "Y" band. It has become almost impossible to resist the urge to tell a reader that a band sounds like another band, saving the writer from having to spend valuable time and energy describing someone else's "sound" with their own words. It's just efficient and easy. So, instead of participating in said "name-dropping," here goes a try at describing Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone without any blatant comparisions. From day one, both The Walkmen and their music have been fashioned in the group's Harlem-based recording studio, Marcata Recording, a converted industrial space. Having their own large studio as a veritable, musical playground noticeably affected their distinctive sound, comprised of primarily of upright piano, organ, guitar, bass and drums. Add Hamilton Leithauser's lethargic and conversational vocals into the mix and the troupe's wistful whirlwind will draw you further into the world they work so thoroughly to create. The Walkmen come off like a group of mad scientists, tinkering with instruments until the wee hours of the morning and experimenting to no end. From the dreamy precision of songs like "The Blizzard Of '96" and "Stop Talking," it's evident they are in love the sound that instruments make, and, better yet, the process by which the sound was developed. The vaulted ceilings of the studio at Marcata have evidently instilled a principle of unrestrained experimentation within the group. Yet, amongst all the free-flowing ideas and roving, reverberating tones, there exists a pop mentality. Catchy hooks, sweeping melodies and the occasional bouncy rhythm can be found in track such as "Wake Up" and "That's The Punch Line." It's not often that a group can boldly step out into the US music scene and release something this confident as a debut. And better yet, they've reached this plateau on their own time, throwing the proverbial bar that so many bands fail to live up to out the window. They've got nowhere to go but up. [www.thewalkmen.com]