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The Walkmen

A Hundred Miles Off  Hear it Now

RS: 3.5of 5 Stars

2006

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Even the brilliant 2004 single "The Rat" -- a furious put-down delivered via car-crash drumming and brittle guitars -- wasn't enough to shed the Walkmen's rep as New York garage-rock second-stringers. So for its third and best album, the band wisely left both the garage and (sonically, at least) New York behind, revealing an unexpectedly lilting and rootsy side to its sound and a growing facility for evocative storytelling lyrics. Appropriately, the opener, "Louisiana," is a tale of a road trip, with lazy Blonde on Blonde guitar strumming underneath barroom piano and horns. The band still over-relies on its old shtick: trebly, tinfoil-like guitars shrouded in echo. But singer Hamilton Leithauser's sore-throated vocals can be surprisingly moving, as on the impressionistic street-life tale "Lost in Boston," which builds from ballad to full-tilt rock squall.

BRIAN HIATT

(Posted: Jun 12, 2006)

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