Gorgeous track from their upcoming album Heaven, "We Can't Be Beat.

I cannot wait for this one.

This.

Ghastly, treacly.

Sorry, not my cuppa.

Fascinating combo.

Looking forward to this, naturally.

voice is a bit different on this one, I like it!

Easily my favorite album from these guys since Bows + Arrows.

loving this album...another solid walkmen record

They're sorta like the National for me. I just don't get the love for 'em.

this is not as good as their last but just as good as everything before that.

I've never really appreciated anything they did before and yet I'm really liking at least half of this one. They've always sounded so jittery to me before, I'd spend an entire song waiting for it to start. But this new one is more direct and confident. And the vocalist finally seems comfortable in his own skin. I expect some might dismiss it as more conventional, but I don't see that as necessarily a negative.

I'm 9 songs in, and the production sounds really great to my ears; it has a clear, rich tone, and I guess I would label the songs and feel of the album as "sophisticated".

I've always been a semi-casual fan of The Walkmen, meaning I'll find something to like about a few songs on every album, but I wouldn't put them in the top 50 of my favorite bands. I'll have to throw this on outside of the office a few times.

i just wish there were one or two of their fast strumming fast drumming jams like "angela surf city" or "the rat" on this one... i keep waiting for this album to peak and it never gets there for me.

but i do still enjoy this one quite a bit.

I only made it for the first 2 albums. Even suffered them live once. It always seemed the singer and band were operating in separate rooms trying to match it up. All the element sounds I liked were there, just apart from each other. This on first listen sounds a little more relaxed in their comfort seat, tweaked more, rounded edges a little, and happy with who they are. Its still them . A better them imo.

Finally got around to spinning this a couple of times and while I agree with you on the points that it's more confident and maybe even conventional, I feel like it's kind of the natural progression: their last three albums have been particularly strong and this sounds like a band who has comfortably reached middle age and can now do a number of styles comfortably. My only quibble would be that the singer doesn't go into that higher range scream/freak out that he is so good at on the early tracks.

Also, they wrote one of the more straightforward high quality indie rock anthems ("The Rat") almost ten years ago, so it's not like they haven't had it in them to play the middle of the road a little more firmly.

i saw them last night and the above is still by far my biggest complaint about them, especially live. they began with a few of the more uptempo songs, but they don't have enough to sustain the electricity that those produce. so when they fall back to some of the more low-key ones, the crowd gets out of it a bit. while i like a lot of the slower songs a lot on the records, it just feels like they haven't figured out how to get a lot out of those live.

then again, last night was a free show outdoors, so casual/curious people who just happened to wander over wouldn't be expected to have the same interest as fans at a normal show.