The Walkmen - Lisbon

Taylor's Choice:

The Walkmen - Lisbon

Hipster Review:

The Walkmen are a one-of-a-kind band; their echoey baroque/rock & roll mixture is distinguished from every other indie rock band today (except maybe The National), and this uniqueness provided the last decade with some of the most gripping music around. Their last two records both offered something that the other didn't: one (Bows + Arrows) throwing a rock/post-punk barrage, the other (You & Me) providing a more atmospheric, disarming sound.
Now the group kicks off in the new decade with Lisbon, perhaps their most restrained, relaxed album yet. The songs here are very exotic-sounding, pulling out more horns, drumming up (see what I did there?) more flavorful beats, and overall varying their sound pallet a bit more. While it's not a dramatic sound shift (it's stylistically similar to You & Me) Lisbon still feels very fresh, in fact fresher than most albums I've heard this year. There's a huge surf rock vibe, and that influence makes each song catchy and fluid. The band feels at their most playful here, giving each song plenty of room to breath, and while each song feels breezy they don't feel empty. And some of the compositions here rank among the group's best, such as "Angela Surf City" and "Woe Is Me". Overall, even though Lisbon isn't the Walkmen's best album, it's still one of the most enjoyable, pleasant albums I've heard all year.

Hipster Rating:

8.7

Friend Review:

Hey guys, sorry it’s been so long. I’ve been really bogged down here at school, so I’m gonna try to post a bunch of quick reviews up just to get caught up on stuff. So these’ll be short but hopefully they’ll get the point across. Again, sorry.

Oh! But first here’s some super rad news!

I have a radio show here at Texas A&M! It’s called Paulcore, and it airs Thursday nights/Friday mornings from midnight to 2 AM. You can listen at kanm.tamu.edu. I play indie pop and rock so I always make sure to throw in a few pieces of stuff that we’ve reviewed recently in there. It’d be really cool if you would listen!

I first heard The Walkmen after hearing their song “The Rat” on the radio. I feel like this song is simply brilliant and impressive and shows what they are really capable of. Before this album I listened to Bows + Arrows and the only track I really liked was “The Rat”. This album follows in the same nature as Bows, everything is very slow and it drags on a lot. Each song gets repetitive within the first minute. There’s just not much energy in this music and the songs get long very very quickly. It might just not be my thing, but I wasn’t impressed. These guys remind me a lot of The National and I’d always prefer to listen to the latter.

Friend Rating:

5.7

Coming up next, I’m Having Fun Now by Jenny and Johnny!

Junip - Fields

Paul's Choice:

Junip - Fields

Friend Review:

I KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THIS BAND OR ALBUM I JUST CHOSE. Since being in college, I’ve found that I’m very lost in the sense of music releases and stuff. So when in a jam I’ll just try to find one album that has come out recently and use that as my choice. The good thing about this is there’s some kind of excitement in listening to an album that you know nothing about and since you don’t really know what it’s about, it’s like going into uncharted waters, it might be the most amazing album ever and you don’t even know about it. I found some of my very favorite bands by randomly choosing to check them out (The Rural Alberta Advantage and Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin, namely). Sadly, there’s also a counterpart to randomly choosing an album because it might just be something you hate. Place yourself in this situation, if you will: a market opens down the street from you, and you think, awesome, maybe they’ll have some berries and cherries I can eat. So you go down to the market and look around, and it turns out all they have is avocados. Ladies and gentlemen, Fields by Junip is a giant avocado.
I started listening to this album while working on calculus homework, and after three songs I was utterly bored. So bored that I had to write on Taylor’s Facebook telling him I was bored (if you’re not friends with us on Facebook, you should be! I’ll try to put up some links or something). There’s not much I can say to describe this music except that it’s dull. The instrumentation feels very repetitive. Usually if one instrument has a boring part it makes another instrument standout but it really sounds like a huge drone. What tops the cake for me though are the vocals. There’s simply no variation in them from song to song, it’s just really bland. I don’t feel like there is any individual song that stands out on this album, or really anything. It just feels like reading the same boring passage of a book over and over again. It’s boring. I think I’ve made my point.

Friend Rating:

4.8

Hipster Review:

Modern folk is kinda shaky ground for me. If a folk artist wants to get my attention, he or she has to shake the roots of the genre instead of doing the same, safe old thing, wading in the tepid pool of worn-out cliches. There's a handful that stick out (Devendra Banhart, Sufjan Stevens, Tallest Man On Earth, etc.), but overall it's a scene that I generally have little interest in.
So out of nowhere comes Junip, an indie-folk group that coats their acoustic compositions in electronic ambience in their debut(?) LP, Fields. Something on the album that really caught my attention- something that I didn't expect at all- was the beats. One can't accuse Junip's songs of lacking dynamics, as each of these eleven songs are arranged very differently from the last (there's even a bit of krautrock in "Rope & Summit"). It makes for an interesting experience for sure, and there's definitely a lot here that will pull listeners in for something truly unique. But the album does begin to drag near the end, with the compositions growing less inspired and more tossed off. But overall I found this album to be quite enjoyable, and I'm wondering where Junip are going to find themselves in the coming years. Fans of indie folk with definitely enjoy this, little doubt. It's far from excellent, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Hipster Rating:

7.5

Coming up next, Lisbon by The Walkmen!

Interpol - Interpol

Taylor's Choice:

Interpol - Interpol

Hipster Review:

After looking back at some of my previous reviews, I realize that I have a really weird way of rating my albums; there were a lot of times where I'd read a review, then look at the score to realize that it didn't exactly match my commentary, or even true feelings, on the album (prime example: M.I.A.'s Maya - by the way, that shit's a 6.3). I apologize. I promise to deliver more representative scores from now on, starting with this little number: Interpol's fourth, eponymous album.

Over the past year, Interpol has, for me, grown from a band who initially I didn't really dig into a band whose music I really love. The group's first two albums (the near classic debut Turn On The Bright Lights and their fantastic follow-up Antics) have really grabbed me after repeated listens, and the thing I love about them most is how well-balanced they are as listening experiences; both are carefully crafted and strike the perfect balance of abstraction and tunefulness (though Antics is a smidgen less of the former).
So when I heard about the group's plans to release a fourth album later this year, I became pretty excited. The first song release "Lights" gathered somewhat mixed reception as far as I saw, though personally I kinda liked it. I mean, it's not a fantastic song, but it's miles above "The Heinrich Maneuver." Then when "Barricade" was released as the first single, I got a bit more excited. I was digging both song's atmospheric tones, and expected the album to be more akin to Bright Light's moodiness. It is, but I should've known better (and maybe I did all along and just didn't feel like admitting it) than to expect something brilliant. It's even shown in the singles: "Lights" is no "Hands Away," and "Barricade" is no "Evil," for damn sure. So here it is: it's an alright album. It's definitely not up to par with their best material, but it also isn't the unadventurous bore that Our Love To Admire was. It is, above all else, disappointing, although those not exactly enamored by the first singles probably won't be too shaken. There's a couple of nice songs on here, but overall the moodiness just feels a bit... empty; it doesn't really serve much of a purpose other than to be moody. There's also no real artistic cohesion on the album that makes it anything truly special or noteworthy. It's an average album by a band that has done plenty better, and is more than capable of doing so again.

Hipster Rating:

7.3

Friend Review:

Howdy! So funny story about this new music… Interpol’s one of my girlfriend Sarah’s favorite bands so when I first heard a song on the radio I asked her, “Hey, what do you think of the new Interpol song? I think it’s pretty cool.” And then she said, “I hate it, it’s soooo boring,” or at least something along those lines. And then, I’m not sure why, but Taylor was there and he said something like, “Really? I think it’s pretty good too!” Anyways, as it turns out, Taylor and I were referring to the song “Barricade” and Sarah was talking about “Lights”. I didn’t even know they had more than one song out on the radio. Anyways, miscommunication is bad, so always clarify your conversations, kids.
Interpol is one of those bands that are kinda in the middle for me. They have a few songs that are nothing short of amazing (“Evil”, “The New”, “PDA”) but overall they don’t have enough variety in their sound to interest me 100% of the time. I still fully respect them, and if someone were to come up to me and say, “Interpol is my favorite band.” I’d say, “That’s cool, man.” I’m pretty sure this review has more dialogue than anything else I’ve ever written; pretty soon it’ll just turn into a screenplay:

Paul and Taylor Delve into Interpol: The Attack of the Hipster; part IV

Man, that’d be the coolest thing ever. Also I’m pretty sure this is the most I’ve ever written while hardly touching on the album at all. So for those of you who come here to actually read about music, I apologize. And to those of you who like to read this blog while laughing quietly to yourself, you’re welcome.
Anyways, as for the actual album, Interpol returns with the same sound they’ve shown for their past album. As sad as it is to say, there’s nothing really to write home about. If you love their past work, then I’m sure you’ll be very happy with their latest, however if you were never one of their biggest fans I highly doubt this album will change your mind. Oh, but for the record, “Lights” doesn’t suck, I rather like it. This isn’t a bad album; it just wasn’t great or noteworthy in my opinion at least. I sincerely hope that you feel differently about it. Toodles.

Friend Rating:

6.8

Coming up next, Fields by Junip!