The Walkmen’s fourth album You & Me is powered, largely, through a dense, dark ambiance and Hamilton Leithauser’s raw howl. If you strip away the sonic layers, and perform the songs acoustically, you lose the underwater drums and the sense that track’s are buried beneath years of snow, but in exchange you get more of Leithauser’s voice, his late-night brandy-infused Closing Time. See, for instance, the New Yorkers performing for La Blogothèque in San Francisco, taking You & Me‘s “Four Provinces” (labeled “Hey Leah”) for a stroll and offering up “I Lost You” beneath the hoops of an outdoor basketball court. (Note: That’s not Eli Manning in the above pic.)
“I Lost You”
“Hey Leah”
(Via P4K)
A simpler, less encumbered visual than that “In The Near Year” clip, and all the better for it.
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You & Me is a strong contender for Top 5 placement in my Favorite Albums of the Year list. . .
four provinces is my favorite song on you & me, i’m so happy to see them do it
I love how lazy music journalism has gotten. At least five different publications have referred to underwater drums/submerged drums — it’s the same fucking description everywhere. It’s not difficult to think of original descriptions and analysis people — better yet you can keep you critiques simplistic and readable! How refreshing would that be? Dark ambience and howls, is that what really drew you into the song? Or was it because it has nice melodies and was catchy? Or were you just writing to show that you could write like that? Tell us how you really feel.
In anycase thanks for the videos, la blogotheque serves another nice set of live videos.
We used the “underwater drums” descriptor in our Premature Evaluation of the album, which as far as I can tell, was the first full review the record received. It’s over here: http://stereogum.com/archives/premature-evaluation/premature-evaluation-the-walkmen-you-me_010969.html. I’m often drawn to songs because of their ambiance, actually. (That’s why I love black metal and noise so much.) I take it you’re more into catchy songs with nice melodies?
The “Hey Leah” clip reminds me of the Pattern Is Movement vid, esp. when they’re walking down the sidewalk with their backs to the camera and when the cameraman crosses the street as they’re still playing. God, that must’ve been awkward for the band.