The Fifth Desk · Evaluation
Act I · The Map
The Walkmen · the band’s fifth album · voice, guitar, organ, piano, bass and drums, with horns on a few tracks · 2008
Mode
Slow, spacious guitar-band song turned toward older forms: the crooner ballad, the waltz, the hymn, the reverberant sound of rock and roll before the 1960s
Mythos
The sea and the shore, the journey out and the return; the vow made at the turn of the year; the red moon as omen; the wanderer who wants to come home, the lover lost and sought again
Phase
From the late night of the opening song through the vow of In the New Year to the hush of Red Moon and a long run of slow songs of settling
Presentation
Album, released in 2008; the band’s fifth, counting Pussy Cats, its song-by-song remake of the Nilsson record
Register
Guitar washed in reverb and tremolo, organ, upright and electric piano, bass, toms and snare played as lead; brass on Red Moon; one high, hoarse, open-throated croon
Scale
One man at the edge of a change, the couple named in the title, the bar, the shore and the islands, the calendar of holidays and years
Governing Proposition
A New York guitar band known for jagged urgency slows down and opens a room around itself: reverb, rolling drums, organ and piano, and a hoarse voice pushed to the top of its range. In that room a man near thirty feels the life of nights, travel and drink turning into a life of anniversaries and vows, and cannot tell whether the change is loss or rescue. The record makes the distance between him and what he wants audible, and makes the vow sound as if it costs something.
Act II · The Essay
Movement I
The record opens late at night. Dónde Está la Playa is a drunk’s swing in a waltz-like time, the band rolling under a voice that has been out too long, and its title asks for a beach that cannot be found. It sets the subject before anything else is said: a man who knows the party is ending and is still at it. The drums lead, the guitar shimmers in its reverb, and the room around the band is already large, so that the night sounds as if it were happening at some distance from the man living it.
You & Me was released in 2008, the fifth album of The Walkmen, counting Pussy Cats, their song-by-song remake of the Nilsson record. The band is Hamilton Leithauser, who sings; Paul Maroon on guitar and piano; Walter Martin on organ and bass; Peter Bauer on bass and organ; and Matt Barrick on drums. Horns are added on a few tracks, and on Red Moon they carry the song. Before it the band had made its name on the jagged, loud urgency of Bows + Arrows, and had followed that with a less admired third record and the cover album.
This record turns away. It is slow and spacious where the band had been fast and close, and it draws on older music: the crooner ballad, the waltz, the hymn, the reverberant sound of rock and roll before the 1960s, played by a band that had come out of the New York guitar revival. The turn gave up the band’s most recognisable manner and the tempo of its one hit for a long, quiet record in a narrow palette. That is a real stake, and it is credited. It is held below the high figures because the past it turned toward had been reclaimed by others, and because the band’s own earlier slow songs had already begun the move.
Movement II
In the New Year comes early in the record and is its summit. Organ and guitar lock into a driving figure, Barrick’s drums roll under it on the toms, and Leithauser throws his voice at the top of its register until it nearly breaks. The song is a vow made at the turn of the calendar, the oldest of renewal rites, and it is sung as elation. But the elation sounds as if it might not last: the voice is at its limit, the band is at full tilt, and the strain is audible. That is the record’s feeling at its most intense, hope that knows what it costs.
The making carries the meaning here more than anywhere. Barrick plays the drums as a lead line, tom-heavy and rolling, so that the song is driven as much by the drums as by the tune; the same is true of the opening song. Maroon’s guitar, washed in reverb and tremolo, and Martin’s and Bauer’s organ are placed so that the room becomes part of the sound. Leithauser’s voice is the most distinctive instrument on the record, a hoarse, open-throated croon with real range. Held at strain, it narrows its own expression, and that is a cost; at the peaks it is the instrument the song needs.
The song has stayed among the band’s most played, and it is their best-known after The Rat. It is also where the record’s reach is plainest. The singer’s later work grows from the voice heard here, and the band’s own Lisbon, at 7.7 here, and Heaven followed the path this record opened: a band of the revival leaving its urgency for older forms and keeping its identity. That is a turn within one band’s career more than a reorganisation of a field, since the reclaiming of older American song was under way among other bands in the same years.
Movement III
Red Moon is the hush at the record’s centre and its second height, the opposite kind to the first. It begins as a quiet song and is carried by brass into something like a Salvation Army hymn at dusk. The horns are arranged with restraint, never more than the song needs, and the sacred enters the record here and only here. The red moon itself is an omen, and the song turns the record from the night out toward something like prayer.
Set Red Moon beside Dónde Está la Playa, the hymn beside the drunk’s swing, and the record’s law shows. They obey the same physics: the same room, the same reverb, the same voice. In the New Year and the hushed slow songs that follow obey it too, and nothing on the record contradicts it. The law binds every part, from the bar to the hymn and from elation to quiet. Its span is moderate, one tempo band and one palette, and the record seldom tests the law against anything far from it, so some of the coherence is narrowness. Within that span it holds without a breach.
The form is an instrument, not a container. The reverberant room, the drums played as lead and the voice pushed to its limit make the distance and the strain the songs are about, and a dry, close production of the same songs would lose the sense of a man calling across water. The sequence carries an arc as well, from the late night through the vow and the hymn to the slow songs of settling, so that the record moves from the end of one life toward another. The arc is soft in its second half, which does not develop what the first establishes.
Movement IV
On the Water carries the image the record keeps returning to. The sea and the shore recur across it, the beach that cannot be found in the opening song, the water, the tiny islands of Postcards from Tiny Islands, and with them the journey out and the return. On the Water and Postcards from Tiny Islands open into long reverberant space of real grandeur, and in them the sea is the distance between a man and what he wants. The wanderer who wants to come home and the lover lost and sought again, figures as old as song, are present throughout.
What the record discloses can be said plainly. A man near thirty finds the life of nights, travel and drink turning into the life of anniversaries and promises: the titles name the frame, Seven Years of Holidays, In the New Year, Long Time Ahead of Us, New Country. He feels the change both as loss and as rescue and cannot tell which. Sound discloses as much as the words do. The voice at strain says the vow costs something; the room says the distance is real. The lyric is impressionistic and often oblique, and it names its people and places without opening them, which holds the disclosure short of the articulated records of its kind.
The patterns are evoked well and often, and the sequence half carries them as a passage, from the night out to the vow, the hymn and the settling. They do not become the record’s structure. The man at its centre stays a particular man in particular bars rather than a figure through whom the voyage is felt. The record knows the old shapes and lets them shade its songs; it does not organise itself as a voyage or a rite.
Movement V
After Red Moon the record settles into a long run of slow songs: Four Provinces, Canadian Girl, The Blue Route, Long Time Ahead of Us, I Lost You, If Only It Were True, New Country among them. Their length is the settling the record is about, a man learning the pace of a life that will go on for years, and the run is part of what the record says. But several of these songs are arranged in one way and share one mode, and one or two could go with little loss. That is the record’s plainest cost, and it falls where the arc is softest.
What the record holds is a few orders, close together, joined by one voice: a consciousness turning from youth toward settling, the couple of the title, time as the calendar and the long time ahead, place as the bar, the shore, the islands and the country left and found. The sacred enters in the hymn and the natural order as the sea. Labour, the family beyond the couple, the state and history are absent. It returns most on the sound, the interplay of guitar and drums and the placing of the organ and piano in the room; the words, admitting many readings without demanding any, return less.
Eighteen years on, the recording is whole and in print, and it is streamed; its fabric, drawn from older records, has dated less than much of its decade. Its presence is narrow, a cult record kept by a devoted following, with no active career to hold it in view since the band’s hiatus in 2013. On this desk it stands at 8.0, below Boxer and Halcyon Digest at 8.2 and Turn On the Bright Lights at 8.4, and above High Violet at 7.8 and Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not at 7.5. What holds it at the threshold of Tier IV is plain: a disclosure carried more by sound than by statement, patterns evoked and not built, a reach held within one band’s career, and a span of a few close orders.
Act III · The Twelve
The required parts are many, and they carry the record’s turn. Dónde Está la Playa has to open: a late night out in a drunk’s swing, the party known to be ending. In the New Year is required as the one burst of hope, the turn of the calendar sung as a vow. Red Moon is required as the hush at the centre, and On the Water carries the image the record keeps returning to. The long run of slow songs that follows is the settling the record is about, and its length is part of what it says. What holds the figure is plain: several of those songs share one mode, and one or two could go with little loss.
Score: 8.0 / 10
The disclosure can be stated, and it holds: a man near thirty finds the life of nights, travel and drink turning into the life of anniversaries and promises, and feels the change as loss and as rescue at once, unable to tell which. The titles carry the frame, holidays counted in years, a new year, a long time ahead, a new country, and the songs move between the bar and the sea, between leaving and settling. Sound discloses as much as the words: the voice strained to the top of its range says the vow costs something, and the room around the slow songs makes the distance audible. The lyric is oblique, and that holds it below 8.0.
Score: 7.9 / 10
The record rises more often than its slow pace suggests, and its height is warm and ragged. In the New Year is the summit: organ and guitar locked in a driving figure, Matt Barrick’s drums rolling under it, the voice thrown at the top of its register until it nearly breaks, an elation that sounds as if it might not last. Red Moon is the second height, of the opposite kind, a quiet song carried by brass into something like a Salvation Army hymn at dusk. Dónde Está la Playa lifts on its swing, and On the Water and Postcards from Tiny Islands open into long reverberant space of real grandeur. Between the heights the record holds a mood without rising.
Score: 8.4 / 10
The deep patterns come often and are drawn well. The sea and the shore recur, the beach that cannot be found in the opening song, the water, the tiny islands, and with them the journey out and the return. The new year is the oldest of renewal rites, the vow made at the turn of time; the red moon is an omen; the wanderer who wants to come home and the lover lost and sought again are figures as old as song. The sequence half carries a passage, from the night out through the vow and the hymn to settling. What holds the axis: the man at the centre stays a particular man in particular bars, and the pattern is evoked more than built.
Score: 7.5 / 10
The departure is real, and it carried a stake. The band had made its name on the jagged, loud urgency of Bows + Arrows, followed by a less admired third record and a cover album. You & Me turns from that urgency toward slowness, space and older music, the crooner ballad, the waltz, the hymn, played by a band out of the New York guitar revival. It gave up the band’s most recognisable manner and the tempo of its one hit for a long, quiet record in a narrow palette, a cost paid before the result was known. What keeps it below the high figures: the turn was toward a past others had already reclaimed, and it refined what the band’s earlier slow songs had begun.
Score: 7.9 / 10
The sequence is counted here, once. The form carries much of what the record knows. The reverberant room, the drums played as lead and the voice pushed to its limit are not a container for the songs: they make the distance and the strain the songs are about, and a dry, close production of the same songs would lose the sense of a man calling across water. The sequence carries an arc, from the late night of the opening song through the vow of In the New Year to the hush of Red Moon and the slow songs of settling, so that the record moves from the end of one life toward another. What holds the figure: the second half does not develop what the first establishes, and its order could change with little loss.
Score: 8.1 / 10
Eighteen years supply evidence, and the yield on return is real. What returns most is the sound: the interplay of Paul Maroon’s guitar and Barrick’s drums, the placing of the organ and the piano in the room, the shading of the voice from croon to strain, detail that a first hearing passes and later hearings find. The words admit many readings without demanding any, so the semantic return is lighter than the formal. The record has not been the object of sustained examination outside reviews and retrospective lists of its decade, and much of what is said about it says the same things: the change of pace, In the New Year, the voice. Formal depth outweighs semantic depth.
Score: 7.9 / 10
The field is the American guitar band of the 2000s, after the New York revival of 2001 to 2004. The intrinsic force: the record showed that a band of that revival could leave its urgency for a slow, spacious music drawn from older pop and folk forms and keep its identity, a path the band’s own Lisbon and Heaven followed. Achieved reach is scored with intrinsic force: the record was admired by critics and held by a devoted following, In the New Year has stayed among the band’s most played songs, and the singer’s later work grows from this voice. What holds the figure: the reclaiming of older American song was already under way among other bands, and no later school can be named as having turned on this record.
Score: 7.6 / 10
Survival is weighed over eighteen years, on form, then presence, then fabric. The form is whole: the recording survives as released. Presence is real and narrow: the record is streamed and kept in print, In the New Year is the band’s best-known song after The Rat, and the album has a place in retrospective accounts of its decade’s guitar music; but it is a cult record, heard by a devoted following more than by a public, and the band went on hiatus in 2013, so no active career has kept it in view. That narrowness is charged. The fabric is little fixed to 2008: the production avoids the sounds of its year and draws on older records, and it has not dated as much of its decade has.
Score: 8.1 / 10
Command of the recorded medium is high and load-bearing. Matt Barrick’s drumming is the record’s distinction: tom-heavy, rolling, played as a lead line, so that In the New Year and Dónde Está la Playa are driven as much by the drums as by the song. Paul Maroon’s guitar, washed in reverb and tremolo, and the organ and piano are placed so that the room becomes part of the sound, and the brass of Red Moon is arranged with restraint. Hamilton Leithauser’s voice is the most distinctive instrument, a hoarse croon with real range, used at full stretch at the peaks. The costs: a narrow palette, several slow songs arranged one way, and a mix that sometimes blurs where the reverb swallows detail.
Score: 8.6 / 10
One law holds the record: reverb, rolling drums, a voice at strain, and the feeling of a man at the edge of a change. Take the two most distant elements, the drunken swing of Dónde Está la Playa and the brass hymn of Red Moon, or the driven elation of In the New Year and the hushed slow songs that follow: they obey the same physics, the same room and the same voice, and nothing contradicts. The law binds every part tightly, from the bar to the hymn, from elation to quiet. What holds the figure is the span it covers: one tempo band and one palette, and the record seldom tests its law against anything far from it, so some of the coherence is narrowness.
Score: 8.4 / 10
Judged on what the record holds, with no discount for the album form. Consciousness is held: a man turning from youth toward settling, through drink, travel and vows. The couple is held, in the title and through the songs of loss and return. Time is held as the calendar, holidays counted in years and the new year, and as the long time ahead. Place enters as the bar, the shore, the islands, the country left and the new one. The sacred is evoked in Red Moon’s hymn, and the natural order enters as the sea. What holds the figure: labour, the family beyond the couple, the state and history are absent, and the orders that are present lie close together, joined by one voice.
Score: 7.0 / 10
Act IV · The Reckoning
8.0 / 10 · Final Average
Placement: Tier IV · Canonical
Strongest Dimensions
The Made at 8.6, then The Sublime and The Inner Law at 8.4. Drumming played as a lead line, a room made part of the sound and a hoarse croon used at full stretch at the peaks; heights of opposite kinds in In the New Year and Red Moon; and one law of reverb, rolling drums and a voice at strain that holds from the drunk’s swing to the brass hymn without a breach.
Limiting Dimension
The Encompassed at 7.0: a consciousness, a couple, the calendar, the bar and the shore held by one voice, with the sacred evoked once and labour, the family beyond the couple, the state and history absent. Then The Archetypal Deep at 7.5 and Pressure on Tradition at 7.6: the sea, the voyage and the vow evoked often and built into no structure, and a turn whose reach stayed within the band’s own career.
The Necessity Cap clears at 8.0 against a threshold of 7.5. The Coherence Floor clears with room: The Living Form at 8.1, The Made at 8.6, The Inner Law at 8.4, each against 7.0. The Epochal Gate is unmet on all five: The Imperishable at 8.1, The Unconcealment at 7.9, The Swerve at 7.9, Pressure on Tradition at 7.6 and The Archetypal Deep at 7.5 each fall short of the bar of 8.5. The Universal Minimum is met: no axis but The Encompassed falls below 7.5, and The Archetypal Deep meets it exactly at 7.5; The Encompassed, which it exempts, clears its own floor of 6.0 at 7.0. Four of the five summit conditions are met. The work stands where its aggregate places it: 8.0, at the threshold of Tier IV, short of the 9.0 that the summit requires.
Basis · the album as first released in 2008, in its original sequence, judged from knowledge of the recording and its reception. No recording, lyric sheet or reference was in hand. The album is the unit; later pressings and reissues are context and are not scored. Hamilton Leithauser sings; Paul Maroon plays guitar and piano, Walter Martin organ and bass, Peter Bauer bass and organ, and Matt Barrick drums; horns are added on a few tracks. Songs are cited by title, and no lyric is quoted. Facts that could not be verified, among them the release dates and label, the producer, the number of tracks, the running time and the lengths of the tracks, the order of the later songs, and the horns beyond Red Moon, are not given.