Review: Of Montreal: False Priest

When have the titles of Of Montreal albums ever made sense? Satanic Panic in the Attic? What could Skeletal Lamping possibly denote? Who was Hissing Fauna, besides potentially the Destroyer? As such, anyone who has continued the rewarding but disorienting life of being an Of Montreal fan long ago parted ways with deriving any literal meaning or interpretations from their titles. Which is why it's something of a shock that False Priest carries with it a quite literal and instructive denotation. Much like Hissing Fauna, and far removed from the incoherent insanity of Skeletal Lamping, False Priest is an album that is graciously about something. Kevin Barnes has made this no secret, as in scores of interviews he revealed the subject matter of the group's new undertaking would be an attack on organized religion. It goes beyond that however, this is more than a negative critique. Kevin Barnes and company absolutely assault the concept of organized religion and all of its constrictive dogmas. They bombard it with vitriol and vengeance. They napalm the church.

The best part about this album is the numerous and dynamic approaches they take to such an assault. At times Barnes uses language to agitate and offend the sensibilities of organized religion (lets stop with idealistic euphemisms here, its not organized religion as a whole, its Christianity). In several cases he speaks in terms of evolution, “How can we ever evolve, when our gods our so primitive” in “Enemy Gene” and saying that god has evolved into something awful in “Casualty of you”. At times Barnes directly address the fallacies and hypocrisies of the church. He casts worship in a perverted light when he says “you fetishize the archetype” in “Like a Tourist”. Furthermore, He indulges in heretic thoughts such as pagan rituals- something particularly antagonizing to christianity- like “soak me in animal blood”. All of the imagery is incendiary and volatile, designed to shake loose the foundations of the churches apathetic yet dominant structures.

Elsewhere Barnes is considerably more literal in his criticisms of the church. The final moment or so of the album is an increasingly distorted voice going off on a scathing rant about the ridiculousness, and very real dangers of religion and faith. “Casualty of You” is a clever bit of story telling as he personifies his relationship with god by relating it vicariously to being dumped and ruined by a girl. He laments “You stole something from me/ can't say what/ just know its gone”. He's not speaking to a person, he is referring to the riotous effect (to borrow Barnes' language) religion has had on him. Elsewhere he callously says “Your sister called me the other day”. Is he referring to an actual familial relation, or a sister of the church? It's subtly clever.

Even more damaging to the church is the way Barnes intermingles religion with highly sexualized psychedelic conceits; specificity, the sort of thing the church vigorously contests. Where as Christian preachings have always threatened some non descript punishment for doing anything other treating your body like a temple, in “Sex Karma” he and Solonge Knowles, lavishly treat each other's bodies like a playground. In “Enemy Gene” Barnes challenges the notion of the human condition being characterized by original sin and rather orients it around sex and hedonism. It is our own urges that influence the world we forge, not some theologically instilled notion of good and evil. In “Girl Named Hello” Barnes slurs “If I treated someone else the way I treat myself/ I'd be in jail” promoting a not so subtle reference to his perceived joys of sadomasochism. There's even a song called “You do Mutilate”. He continues to exercise phraseology that carries a specific meaning to the church throughout the album as a sort of affront to them. In the first song “I Feel Your Strutter”, he blissfuly sings how blessed he is to be in love; it's a back handed way of saying all the bliss and fulfilment that the church promised us is something they are incapable of delivering, but we can find it in others- without them. All of these maneuverings are not direct or blunt strikes against the church, rather he he uses sexuality and the physicality of the body as a hedonistic canvas in which to create his protest against the overtly conservative rigidness and intolerance of Christianity. And what better way to malign the church that to use sex; is there anything else that makes devout Christians more uncomfortable. By tangling them together, intersecting them he destroys the barriers the church has built around itself protecting it from such dimensions. “Godly Intersex”, anyone?

As a result this is Of Montreal's most overtly sexually liberating and explorative album. The low fi Sesame Street, Yo Gabba Gabba innocence of the Sunlandic Twins and Satanic Panic in the Attic is long gone. Barnes is no longer traumatized by one singular apocalyptic emotion as in Hissing Fauna. Whatever was going on in Skeletal Lamping... well thats gone too (Don't get me wrong, I quite enjoy Skeletal Lamping, but seriously can anybody tell me what the hell was going on there?). More so than ever Barnes' vocals are seductive and suggestive. Its like the Musical equivalent of a Russ Myers film. This element is lost however during the few occasions where Barnes makes the mistake of regressing into some sort of spoken word monologue, as in “Our Riotous Defects” or "Famine Affair”. He's playful funk falsetto is supplanted by insipid and blase drudgery. I'm thankful it only happens a couple of times but even once is too many. Oddly, my favourite track on the album, “Coquete Coquette” seems (so far) the only track on the album that seems devoid of the thematic punch that defines the rest of the songs. I don't really have an issue with this, as its a damn good song. Mixing a striking guitar hook with a hallucinogenic frenzied fade out, it's an intense trip. It also probably has my favourite line I've heard in a song this year: “I don't wanna catch you with some other guys face under your eyelids”- a wonderful metaphor.

As with all of their albums, False Priest is endowed with a daunting array of alien riffs, oddball synth, feral sounds, nocturnal brassy beats (especially in “Around the way”), and baffling and awkward rhythms and harmonies. Unlike Skeletal Lamping which was nearly torn a sunder by its own strikingly atypical architecture, most of the songs here take the menagerie of audible oddities and firmly coil them together into something much more focused, directed, and coherent. This precision decays somewhat only in the last song, but after making it that far, I'll certainly afford them a little inane experimentation. It's melodically smoother than maybe any of their prior albums; many of the rhythms have a sort of instrumental equivalent to a soft palatalization. Once again they dive heavily into 70s blacksplotation funk, also mixing a great deal of 80s dreary synth pop in the vein of Depeche Mode, albeit at a greatly accelerated tempo. “Hydra fantasies” deviates a little from this but still feels distinctly like Of Montreal with a peculiar and perverted harmony to it. It reminds me why I once described this group as the Mad Hatter of music: mysterious, intriguing, playful, but slightly unsettling and sinister. However there is nothing on the grandiose or epic level of “The Past it a Grotesque Animal” or “Nonpareil of Favor”. Everything here, while bursting with energy is a little more diminutive.

I hope when people listen to False Priest, they will hear more than just slightly obtuse, and scatter brain pop music. It carries with it so much more intent, sincerity, and passion that your average top 40 pop affair, even if at times it seems like nothing more than an abstract perversion of such material. Its content is worth studying in great detail, and in a way that can't really be said for what people may start to mistake as Of Montreal's contemporaries (I have a feeling that people are going to start comparing Kevin Barnes to Lady Gaga. Barnes could eat her alive- have you seen the video for “Coqute Coquette”?). While it is vengeful, spiteful, and even maybe a little narrowly bias, it is done so in a brilliantly nuanced, subtle, and imaginative way. It may be hard to take they're claims seriously when presented in such a hyperbolic manner- but you really should. That's the way it should be anyways, as I can think of few better words than hyperbolic to describe Of Montreal.

Efterklang at the Media Club

You can creating an inviting atmosphere in nearly any setting by adding a dark mahogany bar, and yes the Media Club does have those enveloping and plush seats lining its perimeter; but its small cavernous space always gives me a claustrophobic sense of dread. Maybe I've seen Deer Hunter too many times, but the prospect of an impromptu bout of Russian Roulette seems menacingly plausible in such a setting- and that rarely ends well for all parties involved. Luckily, we were there to see Efterklang, not exactly the most frightening or intimidating of gangs.

But before the main festivities, openers Buke and Gass were to take the densely cluttered faux stage. A Brooklyn based twosome, comprised of Arone Dyer and Aron Sanchez, that's heavy on the guitar and little else, Buke and Gass were quite the pleasant surprise. Despite raising concern with the crowd over the notion that their neighbourhood had been utterly decimated by what may or may not have been a tornado (in New York?), they were in high spirits and had a talent for charm. As for their sound, it was a thick syrupy blend of their two electric guitars, a one piece drum kick, and a make shift combination of bells and tambourines affixed to Dyer's leg. Honestly, the miniature set up on her leg couldn't really do much more than be hopelessly over shadowed by insurgent guitar riffs that had this guerrilla warfare way of jumping out at you- but it was a nice touch nevertheless. Also of note was Sanchez's guitar. It was some sort of steam punk hammered together apparatus. As if a globular piece of shrapnel from the corpse of T-1000 had been moulded into a such an device. I want one.

Dyer had a pretty impressive voice I believe. I wouldn't cast it as shrill, she certainly created a melodic flow with it, although she often abruptly punctuated it with short truncated wails. It effectively matched the improvisational segues of the music. She at times managed to almost overshadow the speaker's projection of her own voice, and in such a small space, it created an interesting echoing effect. If one is searching for comparative analysis or a frame of reference, I would liken her voice to that of Maria Andersson from Sahara Hotnights; It had a determinist, empowered, but not quite feminist element to it. It seemed to be something of a hold over from post 90s rock that acted as a waypoint between shallow stadium rock and the not quite gestated indie explosion that was not far off. But the late 90s are probably due for an ironic retro revival pretty soon anyways, so perhaps she is intuitively on the cusp of something.

As noted already, their aesthetic is predominantly oriented around electric guitar- not even a bass; it worked surprisingly well. Played in tandem the two were able to create a more lush and content rich sound then I would have initially estimated. Their influences and stylings were a little all over the place, with some noticeable mid 90s ska riffs and much to my surprise even some ukulele style solos and rhythms. Few if any of the songs followed a conventional arc, narrative or otherwise- rather their approach seemed to be a more professional and functional jam session. At times some of the segues from one melody to another were a bit disjointed and I wished there was an actual percussion set to fill in the gaps. For their most part however, the duo made a strong a case for themselves; I could hear more of these two.

Efterklang followed not long after and created a starkly contrasting image to the preceding group. Where as Buke and Gass was comprised of two people sitting for the entire set so as not to upset the mechanical ecosystem that had already smothered the stage, Efterklang was comprised of 6 or 7 mostly very tall swedes that had a penchant for playground baffonary and bouncing all over anywhere they could. Beyond that, Buke and Gass had an instrumental accompaniment that could easily be grafted onto a single street performer, and Efterklang brought everything they could find with them. Guitar, bass, keyboard, synth, computerized sound effects, trumpet, violin, flute, recorder (really, recorder?) and more than enough drums were well represented here. Some came threw better than others although. Any sounded precipitated by a violin sometimes has trouble permeating a room already battered by horn and drums, but they managed to balance the sound levels nicely. The same can't really be said for the flute, it was almost entirely buried under everything else, to the point where it makes you wonder why they bothered. Interestingly enough the recorder was surprisingly audible- I don't get it.

My Experience with Efterklang was certainly limited at best leading into the show. The multitude of instruments deceives one into thinking their music is too complex to find any approachable contemporaries. They're geographical origins don't provide much in the way of clues, as much of their sound carried a more celtic vibe to it, rather than Nordic- that being said I'm entirely unaware of what (if any) qualitative parameters exist to define nordic music. Glockenspiels? No? Moving on then... It was only towards the end of their set that it became glaringly obvious how similar Efterklang is to Broken Social Scene. The interplay between piano and horn, the sporadic bursts of guitar, the whole kitchen sink approach to layering instruments together is very reminiscent of BSS work. Of course the subject matter is not nearly as morose or loathing. Efterklang certainly carries a subdued affirmation to their music; it's almost evangelical even. In this sense they also share similarities with the likes of Camera Obscura and Belle and Sebastian- it is readily apparent that the music is quite good, but it at times is a little overly sweet, to the point where you're just a little embarrassed to be bobbing your head to it.

For a group with so many diverse sounds and instruments, it became a little annoying to see so many of them constantly vying for a chance to hop on the drums. Irresponsibly almost, abandoning their current role for a chance to grab some sticks and bang on- anything really, the whole affair seemed somewhat juvenile and adolescent. One of them starting smacking the drum set with such reckless and utter abandon, that it seemed startlingly similar to the scene in 2001 where the apes discover for the first time the violent uses and applications of tools. It really seemed like he was trying to mimic such theatrics. Elsewhere, the violinist, who did just wonderful things with it, dismissed his function within the group to join in with the lead singer to add even more clashing strikes to already excessively over used snare. It didn't really add anything, and meanwhile the band member on synth at the back had to start playing digitized violin tracks. Why did they need to artificiality recreate the sound of a violin, when there was a perfectly good one on stage not being used? It was a particularly frustrating kind of redundancy. Chastising them for such practices is such a cold and sterile thing to do I realize. After all, they were having a great deal of fun and it added a level of interaction and playfulness that had the audience thoroughly engaged. I just wish it wasn't at the expense of their songs. Perhaps a more euphemistic way to describe the whole affair would be to say that their live act is not engineered for efficency. Rather it is one for pageantry and festivity. And in all fairness, it was pretty cool when members of the band started using the celling vents for an additional source of percussion; the actually got a pretty good sound out of it.

Depending on quality of the vocals one of the benefits of a band the size of Efterklang is having a large pool of backup vocals to draw from. Here the band showed one of their strongest talents as multiple times throughout all of their tracks the backup singers shifted and changed. At times it was just the man on the drums doing back up, other times the female on keyboards and the fellow on bass. At times it was just a couple, during others it was damn near all of them. Doing so created an amorphous and variable sound to their music that never got old and created a lush extra layer to the rhythm. Heather Borderick, the only female in the group had a very strong encompassing voice; at times she even manged to overshadow the lead singer Casper Clausen's own efforts.

Efterklang may not be high up there on my list of must her bands, but they put on a pretty good show at the media club. All the silliness and ineptitude of the group aside, some of their music is pretty compelling (Modern Drift in particular is fantastic). I'm not sure if their theatrics would translate as well to a larger much less intimate venue, but it seemed to fit the bill here. Even they seemed at least partly aware of some of their mannerisms I have described here. As Clausen and Boderick concluded their final song of the set, a mostly instrument free, achingly slow duet, Clausen raised his arm ready to hammer on the snare once more. Instead he lightly tapped a single key on the piano, creating the faintest of blips. A nice touch.

The Walkmen and The National at the Malkin Bowl

My night started off poorly when my memory relapse resulted in myself being trapped within a Malkin Bowl sans the beer kiosk. A blurry combination of false mental images and inflated hopes and dreams had deceived me into thinking once through the threshold I would still have access to a tasty beverage. Alas, this was not meant to be. And I was all out of vitamin water.

On a decidedly more relevant note, I was not the only one who made an egregious miscalculation. For a great deal of the attendants on that mercifully warm fall day, failed to realize that they ceremony they were soon to bear wear witness to was not just The National, but The Walkmen as well. Nearly an hour and half late and we were only a couple rows behind some accommodatingly diminutive people, and just to the right of center stage- a good angle for all the tambourine to come. This was even after a longer and more indecisive than usual foray into the t shirt kiosk. If I wasn't so smitten with my current proximity to the stage, I might have been more vocal about my surprise regarding the scarcity of the populace. Didn't everyone there know who The Walkmen were? Were they not inundated with excitement? This wasn't some local group that got lucky or post modern nu-wave french art house whatever band that had a single picked up on by 130bpm or Pitchfork. This was the cussing Walkmen. Further investigating into the issue yielded similarly displeasing results. While discussing the whole affair the following day with a friend, she conveyed surprise that they were even still around. Yes, The Walkmen very much continue to exist; Lisbon cam out a month ago.

Fittingly The Walkmen have always conducted themselves a such a band. Even though their body of work is increasingly vast, garnering a gluttonous amount of accolades. They performed their set with out even a hint of pretension or grandeur, nary even a sentiment of their own worth. They made no fuss at all as strolled on stage, stealthily even. A great deal even failed to notice; I was even surprised when the background music disintegrated beyond any audible spectrum to be replaced by The Walkmen's stylings. Where did they come from? Beyond that, the group on multiple, even excessive occasions took the time between songs to graciously thank us all for letting them play. We weren't doing them a favour to have them here; we should be so lucky. It didn't take long for apathetic crowd to take notice and pay very close attention.

Starting with “Blue as Your Blood” off the new album, Lisbon, one thing became absolutely apparent; Hamilton Leithausers voice translates from studio to stage perfectly. His screeches, moans, swelling and bellowing wails were just as they sound on the albums. No inferior audio equipment to distort or obscure it, no post production trickery that they failed to replicate here. It was damn near perfect. This is not to say it was some hollow facsimile of the groups studio work- it certainly carried the weight and echo of a voice right in front of you bursting through a tower of speakers. So often at a show, a singer's voice, will seem muted, stale, in need of some mixing and balancing; specificaly such wonders that the live stage will not afford. His grating, cacophonous slurs needed no such adjusting.

I recently said that The Walkmen's music was becoming less and less aggressive and delving further into a mellow contemplative template. Those with a remedial knowledge of the group who attended the show would no doubt disagree with me- and rightly so. The band certainly picked the most energetic and intensive samplings of recent albums. Tracks including “Angela Surf City” and “Juveniles” which I can comfortably assess as the best tracks of the new album. Oddly they choose to omit “Stranded” their first single and probably most emblematic of the bands new direction from the night. Did they not have a horn player? Surely their reasoning was more than logistical obstacles. I won't go as far as to say I was bothered by it, just a little surprised. Nevertheless, even songs that were preformed with a modest amount of gusto and a moderate tempo on the album, were put on display with a raw fiery urgency. On “Juveniles” in the album, when Leithauser says “You're one of us or one of them” he is surely trying to convince us; on stage when he said it, he was desperately and achingly pleading to us. I'll refrain from going as far as to say he was screaming, but he definitely stepped up the vocal fidelity.

To continue, The Walkmen played a very good set, wisely picking the strongest tracks off of You & Me such as “In the New Year” and “Canadian Girl”. Sometimes there's no better way to fall in love with a song than to be forced to hear it live. I never gave “On the Water” much more than a second listen; hearing it on stage resulted in a swift and illuminating epiphany. But they failed miserably in the one area requisite to make it a great set; they didn't play “The Rat”. How the hell could they not play “The Rat”? I can only imagine the adrenaline bleeding fury of seeing that song live; that's right, I can only imagine. Actually they didn't play anything off of Bows and Arrows which was also more than a little distressing. On a more optimistic note, they did play “We'd Been Had”. I had completely forgotten about that song. I no longer retain the reference points within my own memory as to when or at what point in my life I played that song constantly like a beat on repeat, so it was hazy, albeit pleasant trip down my own nostalgic corridors. The Walkmen did themselves justice on stage, bolstering their own worth with a very wisely constructed set list- mostly.

As The National took stage, it was starkly apparent that unlike The Walkmen, this was a group that had gone to some length to cultivate a more specific and designed stage persona. Their seemed to be a little more pomp and circumstance to go with their entrance; one could theorize that it seemed this way in part because at this point the night had grown dark enough to accommodate something of a light show to accompany the bands introduction. Thankfully their attempt to craft a stage presence that seemed bolstered by some theatrics in no way hampered their efforts to put on a show- and a good one at that.

While relying heavily on their most recent album High Violet, they still delved a great deal into previous albums. A lengthy set window and broad body of work certainly accommodates such an approach (read- they played a lot of songs; not as long a set as Spoon earlier this year, but enough to gt your money's worth). Whereas The Walkmen broke my heart just a little when they didn't play “The Rat” it was quickly mended when The National played “Afraid of Everyone”. On the album it is haunting and macabre; performed live its down right bone chilling. If I had a caveat to preaching the song's merits its that it fizzles out in a limp and abrupt way- not so with this rendition for they extended the ending with an instrumental solo after Matt Beringer had finally run out of breath.

On the topic of running out of breath, while I may not characterize Leithauser's performance as one full of screaming, I can certainly affix such a description to Beringer. While he certainly yells on the album as much as the next disaffected existentialist, on stage he his piercingly loud and coarse. It was quite a feat that he could transition from subdued crooning to such outbursts and back and forth. Others at the show seemed to think I was too appeasing of Beringer vocals stating instead that he skirted to close to each side of the inaudible bandwidth, at times mumbling a little too far under his breath or assaulting an audiences' already strained ear drums. I liked it. Their live act consisted of a number of other slight deviations when compared to their albums- and for the better I think. Having a considerable affinity to horn sections I was delighted at how prevalent the single trumpet and trombone were in a great number of songs. Even in songs like “Blood Buzz Ohio” where a horn section is minimal at best in the studio version, it was quite prominent here. I suppose with all live acts, the bass section seems to take on a more commanding presence, but I noticed it especially with The National (it didn't really seem to be the case with The Walkmen). Songs like “Terrible Love” and “Runaway” Had a much heavier bass spine. One can't necessarily say that qualitatively makes them sound any better, but my preferences certainly were catered to. Having said that at times the band got a little to carried away and went from loud and passionate to “lets make their ears bleed”. Towards the end my friend's and my own right ear was becoming something of an apocalyptic lost cause. Granted we were pretty close to the right speaker monolith, but goddamn. Remember that scene in Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan where that parasite boars its way into Chekov's ear? Ya...

I was unable to ascertain any kind of consensus among the small pool of attendants and fans I interrogated when trying to find out which group put on the more memorable and enjoyable show. The bellicose and thundering Leithauser and The Walkman, or the volatile and draining emotional roller coaster from The National? Both acts were thoroughly satisfying, but for money, I'll give it to The Walkmen (of course, I didn't actually pay any money for my ticket).

Review: The Walkmen- Lisbon

I always respect a band that places more prominence on its own development and evolution than a shallow need to fulfil its fans myopic desires. The problem with subscribing to such a pretentious high ground is I often am one of those myopic fans. As such, like everyone else who has charted the progress of The Walkmen, Lisbon will leave you a little unfulfilled, if only because it's still not just more Bows and Arrows. However this reaction should only be preliminary at most, as closer examination and dismantling of Lisbon gives way to its own merits and dynamics.

While the subject matter from previous outings is very much prevalent here, the tone has shifted dramatically. The Walkmen have always dealt with the disenchanting issue of isolation and loneliness, however in Lisbon, vocalist Hamilton Leithauser has realized his jaded and battered outlook was in dire need for a major reevaluation. As such, much of this album still orbits around the central idea of being alone, however such a thing is no longer characterized in such a demoralizing light; rather Leithauser seems at best, able to ascertain the positive contributions of such a situation, and at worst, nonchalantly unaffected by it. Leithauser wastes no time conveying these new sentiments, as he lays his restructured character directly before us with in the first spoken words of the opening track “Juveniles”. “You're with someone else tomorrow night/ doesn't matter to me”- he seems to accept the fact that at times isolation is a human condition that wholly transcends the grasps of anyone persons control. He goes on to carefully contextualize being alone in something of a comforting even nostalgic manner. “The country air is good for me” he mumbles differentiating the infestation of over populated urban existence with the leisurely, albeit lonely rural life; Leithauser makes his decision clear.

“Stranded”, A clear stand out track on the album continues this line of thinking while at the same time introducing an intriguing subtext to the album. Leithauser pleads “You don't want me, you can tell me”, as if to explain he no longer needs his feelings spared from the inevitable parting of ways between whoever he is speaking to. The only track on the album carried by a horn melody, its tune radiates an enveloping sense of warmth and content. Its both interesting and instructive listening to this and then going back to Bows and Arrows. Leithauser is clearly no longer searching for the cathartic vitriol that spewed from the “The Rat”. That slightly destabilizing sense of anxiety is no longer propelling the bands music forward at such a pace. Leithauser isn't in a rush to get somewhere, rather being content lingering exactly where he is. The music in “Stranded” especially, but elsewhere as well, astutely translates these feelings into something more tangible for the senses.

As for the aforementioned subtextual references, now that Leithauser has taken successful strides towards conquering his own neurosis, he has directed his efforts towards others. Through out segments of certain songs he seems compelled, all though by no means confident in his ability, to apply a similar panacea to others as he did himself. Just as he seems less tormented by a life of loneliness he wants the rest of us to feel the same. Realizing he lacks the capacity to accomplish this, he finds himself striving to be with this people in some noble endeavour to protect them from a vacuumous solitary confinement. In “Angela Surf City” he boasts “Let's go home happy again/ just take your head from you hands”. In “Stranded” he desperately wants to know how his friends are doing; are the ok? Are they drunk and lonely? But he is unable to come to their aid as he says “There's broken glass around my feet” Awesome Die Hard imagery aside, he is conveying that while he is overcome his own dilemmas he is trapped from freeing others from such melancholy. This appears to be the new inspiration for Leithauser's agonized and scouring slurs.

While the pacing and subdued vibe of Lisbon certainly shares more in common with its more recent predecessor You & Me, as opposed to the variable speeds of Bows and Arrows, its construction seems unique and fresh. Most notable is the majority of the guitar seems a great deal lighter, euphonic even. More specifically it seems to generate something of a maritime, pacific aura. While pleasing and euphoric at times, it lacks the charisma of the Walkmen's earlier work. There aren't really any tracks that create the energetic tension and release that “Thinking of a Dream” “In the New Year” and “On the Water” had. This is not to say the direction is a mundane misadventure, I simply miss galvanizing triumphs and vengeful tirades their music use to personify. I have no doubt they till have this ability; perhaps they felt Lisbon's subject matter called for restraint. “Blue as Your Blood” comes close to being an exception with a guitar hook that is decidedly more blunt and penetrating the the rest of the album. “Angela Surf City” seems to be another as it ditches the minimalism of much of the album in favor of more brash hyperactive affair; I think its one of the better songs. Its core melody is actually purposely recycled and altered for a couple of the more low key and low fi tracks on the album. While by no means a recent innovation, it is a tactic that seems to be oddly common as of late. Arcade Fire and M.I.A. have both made similar moves in their recent work. With Lisbon, the purpose of such a maneuver eludes me, and its results seem to be less impacting as a result, when compare to The Suburbs by Arcade Fire at least.

As with they're other albums Matt Barrick shows himself to be one of the best modern day drummers. Throughout the album he directs the percussion from simple supportive backbone to the determining factor in altering and directing the pacing of a song- and then swiftly back into something understated once more. While less prevalent, Leithauser seems to have lost a touch of that grizzled scathing quality to his voice. It seems slightly more mellowed and crooning. The affects of this are minimal at best, but it seems worth mentioning.

With Lisbon, the Walkmen have taken another stride in the opposite direction of venomous outbursts that originally made people take notice of their efforts. Where as with so many other bands, such a maneuver is derived form an misconceived notion of innovation for innovations sake, The Walkmen's journey so far has been pleasantly logical and carefully mulled over. Their sound has become slightly lackadaisical and although its still engaging and thoughtfully engineered, it has discarded its alarmist and rattling guitar and pacing. However the new sound, while perhaps less startling, more aptly compliments a group that has become more seasoned and less irrationally bound by, as they would put it “juvenile” emotions. One wonders if they would take that as a compliment.