The Last Stand
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With “You & Me,” New York pop-garage boys The Walkmen offer a jittering collection of down-tempo pop tunes, all full of uncertainty and doubt and fantastically melodic guitar lines that completely clash with everything else going on.
If lead vocalist and guitarist Walter Martin didn’t sell that combination so well, it would be painful to listen to. But he does sell it, with his honest — if not always original — songwriting situations.
That works well enough for the distant feeling of the album’s first three tracks. And it really gets useful on everything after that, starting with “In the New Year,” an early outpouring of everything that’s been building under the surface on “You & Me,” as Martin lets loose a sort of anguished nostalgia paired with hope for the future. There are uplifting keyboard lines and shuffling drums to break through the album’s general fuzz, and The Walkmen infuse the song with joy it probably doesn’t deserve.
Things pick up from there on “You & Me,” though they never get too bombastic or dynamic — in other words, they continue to sound like The Walkmen, breezy and mindful of what will work and what people want to hear.
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