The Walkmen - Lisbon
- Written by Johnny Stockford
Lisbon starts from where 'Red Moon' left off on You & Me, taking the core of that particular song - the waltz - and stripping it back, removing all the warmth and gloss of the brassy production, and working with the bare bones. It's a record that fits in to the The Walkmen's back catalogue much in the same way that Transference does in Spoon's: hell, it's raw and unpolished, but there's more to it than that. These songs have been given room to breath, and as a result sound a lot looser and more relaxed than those before. Walkmen songs have previously been thick with production; here, they push the focus on Hamilton Leithauser's voice, which is, ultimately, the best thing about this record: versatile and always charismatic.
Lyrically, too, Lisbon is sparser: Leithauser flirts between images that, like photographs, suggest both separation and togetherness. These songs resist being read as coherent narratives by providing so many gaps, preferring to give you a momentary glimpse so you can complete what's missing.
On opener 'Juveniles' Hamilton Leithauser talks of “better things to come” but this apparent optimism, backed by a brightly plucked guitar, is undercut by a whole series of oppositions: love and loss, youth and experience - the relationships between these oppositions are never explicit. There are suggestions of betrayal on the part of a lover, though the title suggests that this is simply a case of young love's naivety: “You pull a blanket across my eyes/It's a tragedy”. It's a track that deals obliquely with rites of passage: his romance will be gone in the morning, just as the leaves have left the trees and are now dead and “drying in the sun”.
The oppositions don't stop there. The most conventional, anthemic track here, 'Victory', sees Leithauser complaining about being more tired than ever: “My Lord, where's the satisfaction?/It's all uphill for me”. Vocally, he's never sounded so alive. Another irony comes in the shape of 'Woe Is Me', the sunniest track here, best captured by Leithauser's directive, which also extends to the album as a whole: “Don't get heavy/Let's be light”.
On a record full of slow-burning “power waltzes” as Leithauser has fittingly called them, there are a few bright spots of directness. You & Me's rousing anthem was 'In The New Year'; Lisbon's is 'Angela Surf City', a track that, unfortunately, makes the record a little top-heavy. The guitar, appropriately, is in surf rock setting, switching from irregularly strung chords in the verses to razor-sharp shredded riffs in a glorious double-whammy of a chorus: “I used to see the signs/Now I dream of the time/I was holding on to you”. As a listener has commented on last.fm, those that only like them for ‘The Rat’ are gonna love this one. There’s not much else to keep those Rat fans happy, though. Track-listed so early, you get the false impression that Lisbon could be a return to Bows + Arrows levels of blow-the-cobwebs-away energy, but its intensity lies in its rawness rather than its pep.
The title-track epitomises this best: it sits alongside past work in the same way that 'Riot Van' fits into Whatever I Say I am, That's What I'm Not, its sleepiness allowing the band to turn what could be a dull fade out into beautiful, rising orchestration. 'Stranded', meanwhile, manages to sound poignant, woozy and authentic. It's a brilliantly imagined character study of a drunk in New Orleans staggering down a street, remembering the times he used to dance with the best of them. There's glass around his feet, he's alone, and he's all starry-eyed. But he can't let the memories slip. The glory of days gone by are still there, in the horns that give the impression of a grand procession following in the wake of the drunken man's jukebox lyrics: “Throw another dime in me my friend/And I'll sing a song I know for you”. 'Torch Song', another 1950s throwback, also impresses, combining barbershop quartet harmonies and Leithauser's more rousing vocal, chiming guitar and light touches of piano.
In many ways Lisbon represents a natural progression for the band, seeing them ease more into their own world of booze-soaked Americana. They've just had to strip back the layers to find their soul.