clown wrote:I can't understand listening to this album 2-3 times and not seeing how the band has continued to grow and expand its sound in a beautiful, awesome way. you can tell that the band's influences are expanding and rubbing off on their sound.
who cares if Ham's not "wailing" as much? he's still yowling on certain songs and it's not like he had only one tenor in the past.
not going to bother ranking it among their other records as the last 3 have been masterpieces IMO
pellegrino viking essays wrote:
just got line by line
what do you mean by this?
masterpieces? jeez. i mean they are a real good band and all but i'm not even convinced that any of their albums are really masterpieces. the closest would have to be the first one. it is just unparalleled in their catalog as far as mood goes.
bows + arrows is certainly no masterpiece but is quite strong. lots of standout tracks and honestly nothing that i ever skip over. just a really solid record.
a hundred miles off at the time i remember being pretty disappointed in, and in some ways i still am. but it has some songs that are really great... especially "this job is killing me." that's one of my favorite walkmen songs period.
pussy cats is a throw away, i don't even really count it as an album of theirs. it has maybe 1 or 2 worthwhile songs and i remember being really psyched when i heard they were covering the whole thing but it was ultimately a let down.
you and me only suffers from perhaps being a bit long and forgettable towards its conclusion. it has some of the best walkmen songs though and the first half is really really great. i still listen to this a lot. basically the first like 7-8 tracks are all great....donde esta, on the water, in the new year, i can think of some of the other titles of songs but there are quite a few excellent songs.
then comes lisbon. i never got into this when it first came and i've given it plenty of chances in the past couple of years and i was honestly kind of hoping it was a misstep and that they would get back to some intensity and power with their next record.
then this strokes-lite shit comes out. it's kind of been a disappointing trajectory.
i definitely see how the band has changed over time but i would not refer to that change as "continu[ing] to grow and expand[ing] its sound in a beautiful awesome way"
this became a really long-winded post but i can't disagree more with the sentiment that the last three records have been masterpieces. the only album of theirs that is even close to a masterpiece is the debut.