“Remember, remember? All we fight for?”
Hamilton Leithauser could be addressing his bandmates in The Walkmen’s new single “Heaven” as he sings those lines. The track, which happens to be the title track of their soon to be released album, sees the band pushing forth into ten years in their career. With a record almost every two years, totaling to Heaven being their sixth, fans have seen the original Washington DC band developed not only their sound but how they literally grew up performing. Personally, I like the band’s rough-around-the-edges sound, the band sounding both celebratory and reckless that eventually get polished in You & Me. Not that the sophistication of that record and Lisbon hurt the direction the band was gearing for. However in “Heaven,” The Walkmen seem to have loosen up a bit albeit the structured, tighter drumming. With the theme of remembering “lamented tale of distant years” supported with images of children, juvenile idealism and the torture of seeing those frozen memories change are all tensed in this track. At the end, Leithauser pleads of not being left alone, sounding all throaty and desperate. In the stream provided by the band’s label Fat Possum, it says “Radio Edit” which could mean that with the story edited in its shy of four minutes length lie a longer document, a clearly told lamentation that would delight us when the record is finally out.
The track can be downloaded/ previewed via iTunes or an MP3 link here. By now, you must know how to do it via Soundcloud as well.
The Walkmen: “Heaven”
Filed under: Musicians: Profiles & Interviews, Song/MP3 Parade, remember? All we fight for, The Walkmen Heaven Download iTunes, The Walkmen Heaven MP3 Download, The Walkmen Heaven MP3 Review, The Walkmen Heaven Soundcloud Stream, The Walkmen Remember
Michael Levasseur owns a musical biography that started the day his folks presented him a new guitar when he proved himself worthy of one after playing a battered instrument, followed by numerous accounts that name-check famous alternative acts in the ’90s to the recent of working in a record store Everyday Music in Portland. In those years, ever since young, he has been fated with a career in music, as a struggling one-act, with his bands or as a record specialist. He has traveled extensively only to find himself restless town after town, looking for inspiration and maybe for good, settling back to his favorite town again. An anecdote to tell is when he saw a rising local player Elliot Smith while working as a dishwasher and starting his own band. In witnessing the late Smith, Levasseur felt the gape in his skills needed to be filled to speak clearly of his own visions.
Last year, The Cure performed their 1981 album Faith together with two other records for the four-hour 
April 16, 2012 • 1:14 am 0
Beach House: Bloom
No introduction needed as to who Beach House are. We know who is Victoria Legrand with her equally important musical partner Alex Scally. Reigning throne bearer for dream pop circuit with the arrival of the important Teen Dream in 2010, Legrand and Scally defend the title with their latest Bloom. With a quarter of a million followers in Facebook, the mystery that looms over Legrand’s ethereal presence on stage and Scally’s shy-shoegazing appeal is a major key player in the band’s increasing popularity known to only few prior Teen Dream, and with Bloom the band is set for a wider audience.
Most of us, including this writer, has fallen in love with the fact how the first two records’ moodiness were shattered apart by the emotional honesty shown heard in Teen Dream. Not that the lyrics in that record were all out, the accessibility to the band’s music was heralded, much like gates opening to a showroom of vintage and potion. That openness grows further in Bloom, as heard in “Wild,” the second track after the earlier released “Myth” where Legrand opens with “My mother said to me that I would get in trouble/ our father won’t come home ’cause he is seeing double.” Comparing with how bleak yet emotionally attaching “Silver Soul” and “Zebra” are, the directness the band approach the songs in the latest record is a step up which occurs, too, in “Troublemaker” and “Other People” among others. It is clearly evident that Legrand took the time to hit the books and work on her narratives as compared to how Teen Dream‘s set was made in between tours.
Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Album Commentaries, Album Review Beach House Bloom, Beach House Album Review, Beach House Bloom Review, Review Beach House Bloom