The Walkmen
Heaven

Ajajajaj dear Hamilton Leithauser, you really shouldn't have done this to me. I would have bet everything on you and lost. I had hopes of following a valid and original band, but instead, the Walkmen have deflated like cheese pierced by a fork. Or rather, they slipped on a considerable amount of mess because what these guys have done in the past is beyond question. Moreover, the artistic turn, which I find the most admirable thing that occurred with the previous Lisbon, is the main defeat here.

If before, the delays, the pounding drums, and Leithauser's voice elegantly blended to create unusually deep alienated landscapes, the only thing deep left in Heaven is the new entry of embarrassment. Even the song titles are a whole program: “Love is Luck,” “Heartbreaker,” “The Love you Love,” “Dreamboat,” what is this, a challenge thrown at Bibier? Not that the content of the songs themselves shines with philosophical insights, and one might argue it doesn't matter, were it not for the fact that the urge to talk about these songs is about as strong as the desire to use an electric drill to brush one's teeth.

Flatness, predictable pop, overly sweetened, which moreover emanates from the headphones with a minimal presumption of appearing sophisticated. It doesn't disgust as an album; it just ends up feeling tremendously empty compared to the New Yorkers' career, from whom I would have expected anything but a B-grade pop group album mimicking the Doves. Suddenly, they seem to have woken up and asked themselves: why not steal a slice of fans from bands that make money like the Temper Trap? Excellent idea, too bad with this mediocrity they suspended themselves in a limbo of little songs built for who knows which audiences without possessing a commercial attitude and therefore the cards to break through among the lobotomized.

It's a pity, a pity for you Leithauser, who waste your powerful wail (here more a whimper), that voice that I fell in love with, a bit decadent, a bit husky; well, hearing it lost among schoolish and puerile melodies makes one a bit sad. And to think that exactly 10 years ago came out “Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone.”

Better to keep a tight grip on everything.