The Walkmen
A Hundred Miles Off
(Record Collection; 2006)

People must have been encrusted in deep, deep slumbers or running around with their headphones turned up too loudly. It’s tough to imagine how they missed this, the Walkmen’s third and most sonically vicious album. While their debut, Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone (2002) dealt an atmospheric hand and its follow-up, Bows & Arrows (2004) was a concise collection of rockers and subtle ballads, 2006’s A Hundred Miles Off blends the Walkmen’s penchant for the crooning melodies of ‘60s New York singer-songwriters with an aggressive energy that recalls the hardcore roots of their hometown of Washington, D.C.

Lyrically speaking, this is the album where the Walkmen really began screaming at us with middle-class desperation, with absolute disgust aimed at the world that surrounds them. They’d been heading in this direction for years, getting more and more aggressive in their delivery. In the beginning, back in 2002, they simply asked for us to “Wake up” or denounced that “[We’d] been had.” A couple of years later they were barking at us for having the nerrrrve to stop by and say hello. But on this album there’s only a blank and caustic nihilism, a sense that nothing matters, that we should burn in hell for being such sheep in this fucked-up world. On one of the album’s standouts, “Emma Get Me a Lemon”, singer Hamilton Leithauser opens with a contemptuous acknowledgment of a relationship he doesn’t really want to be in:

Emma! Get me a lemon
And if there are none, get me a lime!
And if we got none, go out and get some!
I’m gonna wait here by your French door

Similarly on “All Hands and the Cook”, he barks out with an anger so unresolved he doesn’t know where to aim it:

Stop talking to the neighbor’s dog!
I’ve got a temper and it’s late
Break all the windows in my car!
Burn down the room when I’m asleep
Break out the bottles when I go
I’ll dig a hole for all your friends!

Despite its grim stance, the Walkmen actually had a blast making this record. They returned to D.C. to cut most of it, while working on the rest in between their New York and Philadelphia studios. So, it’s remarkable that the result of this band having so much fun is the sound of pain, regret, and hopelessness. Those eerie organs and ancient upright pianos, especially on “Emma Get Me a Lemon” and “All Hands and the Cook”, set a somber tone as the driving tom rolls and the insistent pulsing bass create a stark energetic contrast, twisting and turning our bodies even though we’re being told—or rather shouted at in Leithauser’s signature snarl—to sit down, drink, and cry. Meanwhile, the guitars drop into the edges of the mix with shimmering stabs of reverb-heavy chords. It’s almost as if lead guitarist, Paul Maroon, was off on his own in a room far away from the rest of his Walkmen, playing as loud and hard as he could in a desperate but distant attempt to be heard.

At several points the band breathes their rage into expansive and interesting song structures, like the mosh-pit middle section of “Lost in Boston” or the suicidal outro stomp of “This Job Is Killing Me.” Each inch of tape seems stretched to its capacity with sonic abandon. This is the Walkmen at their most punk: more interested in capturing the energy of their music than anything else (perhaps it was all in an attempt to match the ear-splitting nature of their concerts). In all fairness, though, the Walkmen do pause for some reflective, (slightly) upbeat moments: the joyous horns of “Louisiana” are irresistible, as is the percussion-laden groove of “Brandy Alexander.” And maybe the only true moment of calm on this record is the last song, “Another One Goes By”—a Mazarin cover rendered with subdued charm via Leithauser’s most lounge-worthy croon.

Logic suggests that A Hundred Miles Off passed by a number of listeners’ Best Of 2006 lists because it didn’t have a frat house romp like 2004’s “The Rat” or a slice of classic piano pop a la 2002’s “We’ve Been Had.” No, it certainly didn’t fulfill those quotas, but it did make up for its lack of single-worthy material—“Louisiana” being the only exception—by pairing violent and raw arrangements with their best and most consistent lyricism yet. For every hardcore kid looking for his inner Cohen or Dylan to express itself with loud inhibition, look no further: the Walkmen have unearthed such a blueprint on A Hundred Miles Off.

Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]

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