Audio By Carbonatix
Of the slew of Big Bad Apple bands to emerge at the beginning of this decade, few have culled the core like the Walkmen. Brash, blasted, and organic, they took what was best about a bar-room brawl and rooted it in the heavens. Best, they did it without the garage-rock trappings or the goth-rock overtures of some of their equally classed counterparts. You heard the score: The roar of “The Rat” (Pitchfork‘s No. 6 Single of the Year for 2004); the Saturn Ion commercial using “We’ve Been Had”; The O.C. swinging “What’s in It for Me” and “Little House of Savages.” These days the Walkmen have ditched much of the bombast and instead released A Hundred Miles Off. Whether or not you deem it on the mark will all depend on how you feel about the evolution of a city-slicked swamp. But you might wanna hold your forked tongue till you catch their act live.
