Before The Strokes "saved rock'n'roll", there was Jonathan Fire* Eater: four high-school hepcats who traded their native DC for NY and - for a few months in the late '90s at least - set the streets of Gotham ablaze with their bristling garage swagger. When their major label debut failed to attract the punters, their comet sadly imploded. Nothing remained but resignation, anger and disillusion. Oh, and a bulging check from their label.
When three-quarters of JF*E reconfigured as The Walkmen with two refugees from glam kings the Recoys they spent the cash on a sixth member: 900 square feet of studio space in Harlem. While Casablancas & Co were enthralling the masses with their cribbed Fire*Eater sound, The Walkmen were brainstorming their own plan B.
The result was 2002's "Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone", a piquant sonic drama that pricked the attention of Warners enough to finance this follow-up. If history repeats itself I'll happily eat the contents of my sock drawer, safe in the knowledge that the world is a cold and barren place. It's not just that The Walkmen have grafted too hard for too long, it's that "Bows + Arrows" is an exhilaratingly glorious record with a depth and range that would have The Strokes selling their grandmas for an ounce.
Their rattling studio and semi-improvised ethic is integral to this record: three of the eleven tracks were laid down immediately as they plopped, kicking and screaming, from The Walkmen's collective knapper. The effect - as evinced on the swishing gallop of "Thinking Of A Dream I Had" - is of Velvets-style white noise wrapped around the death rattle of the Pixies. That's with the ghost of legendary producer/magician Joe Meek presiding.
There's bile strewn everywhere. On "The Rat" – a lo-fi Pet Shops Boys demo from 1886 with added city sickness - vocalist Hamilton Leithauser croaks like a Camels'n'pollution frazzled Jeff Buckley that "when I used to go out I'd know everyone I see, now I go out alone if I go out at all."
With easeless dexterity, they shift from braggadocio ("My Old Man") to the musichall disco last cleaved by Saint Etienne ("New Year's Eve"). Elsewhere, they even take on the Pogues brand of dissolute folk with the doleful "138th Street" and ethereal opener "What's In It For Me?" where Leithauser comes on like a ragged hobo in a pub lock-in. Always, a crackling fug of reverb envelopes the music, as if what's on the disc is a recording of a dusty 78 from some parallel universe (one, obviously where justice reigned and The Walkmen were as big as U2).
Undoubted centrepiece however, is "Hang On Siobhan". Based on an Appalachian ballad and recorded at 3am, teardrops fall from Paul Maroon's piano, the notes dancing in the air like a jewellery-box ballerina.
Upon finishing, Hamilton Leithauser and cousin Maroon engaged in a celebratory arm-wrestle. So fired up was the former that Maroon was scooped away to ER with a broken arm. And no small wonder. It's tumultuous. It's breathtaking. It's expressive without the barest hint of Radiomuse indulgence. If "Bows + Arrows" doesn't break your bones, it'll certainly break your heart.
by Nadine McBay