Lisbon

The Walkmen have had more false starts than 100m heats at the Olympic Games so it a happy event to report that Hamilton Leithauser and his band of troubadours from New York have finally nailed the damn thing to the post and decided to move out of the garage. In their ten years of making music we have had massive highlights like "The Rat" one of the greatest rock songs to be pressed to vinyl, the roaring post punk hand grenade of an album that is "Bows + Arrows" and the moody incendiary magnificence of their return to form album 2008's "You and Me". We have also had some pretty poor fare to deal with not least their third album "A Hundred Miles Off" and sense that the Walkmen might have missed their big chance. So it's wonderful that "Lisbon" proclaims a very loud "au contraire" to the doubters and presents a band at the top of their game.

Not that this album has the raw power of some of their earlier work or their trademark full frontal attack, but that can be deceptive on deeper listens. Indeed "Lisbon" like the Portuguese Capital is in many respects superficially a bright affair on which we have glorious surf punk anthems ("Angela Surf City" which is possibly their best song since "The rat"), surreal Johnny Cash like alt country rockers (the brilliant "Blue as your blood") and epic spiky slow burn rock ballads ("Torch song" and "All my great designs"). Equally this is more than ever an album where Leithauser's vocals dominate and the singing style is now very much his own property forever laying to rest the former accusations of a Dylan copyist.

It would not be The Walkmen however if some dark undercurrents didn't come to the forefront and on the lovely and wry lament "While I shovel snow" which Leithauser sings beautifully he regrets that "half of my life I've been watching, half of my life I've been waking up". Dejection has always been a Walkmen specially and "Woe is me" tips a nod to fellow New Yorkers the Strokes but also proves that Leithauser recent crash course in Sun Records rockabilly has paid off. "Stranded" alternatively starts off with slow horns and actually sounds like a traditionally based almost Felice Brothers style song, it is very big highlight on an album packed with them.

"Lisbon" is the Walkmen's sixth album and during the past ten years there have been times when "travelling the journey" with this band has been a difficult and questionable affair. It is because of this that "Lisbon" taken together with "You and Me" is such a triumph, indeed it worth echoing the words of the wonderful American music blog Stereogum which rightly states that "The Walkmen have gotten so good at what they do, it's easy enough to overlook the complexity of what it is they're creating." Thus in "Victory" which is a song with distant echoes of the Clash during their Sandinista era the Walkmen announce that "Victory should be mine" to which this reviewers response is "well done you've achieved it".

Like many people, following the wonders of Bows and Arrows, I felt that the Walkmen were descending into indie obscurity due to the mediocrity of their follow-up material. You and Me may have raised the bar slightly but generally, I remained convinced that their best work was already behind them. How wrong can one man be???

This is a work of awe-inspiring beauty and sincerity. It's tone is introspective and spiritual whilst never straying into tepid sentimentality. The vocals soar as always (Leithauser melds rugged indie journeyman with vulnerable troubadour to mind-blowing effect) but what really impresses are the shimmering production values alongside the judicious use of sparse instrumentation to maximum effect. Take the adventurous use of a brass section on Stranded or the melancholic piano on While I Shovel The Snow. It all works in a way which draws the listener into an intimate relationship with this album, a relationship which any other Walkmen release has failed to achieve (even the intrepid Bows and Arrows).

It is perhaps notable that The Walkmen released this album through Bella Union, a label whose quality remains a high watermark in modern indie circles. They have brought the best out of this prodigiously talented band and not before time. I hope that this is a beacon of things to come and that future releases by The Walkmen will incur the same delightful response.

I have only come to The Walkmen relatively recently, but now regard them as one of the most original bands around, certainly in the loosely defined 'indie' category. The sparseness, and yet undoubted beauty, of their sound reminds me of Marquee Moon era Television (one of the great albums). The vocal style of Hamilton Leithauser is an acquired taste, but one which I have definitely acquired. The intensity and passion of his voice is unparalleled amongst current bands, I would say. I have not yet delved into their material before You and Me (but perhaps will do so), but I consider that album, and even more so the Lisbon album to be full of great melodies which (as with all great albums) grow and grow with each listening.