A Hundred Miles Off

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After two stellar full-lengths of wintery urban ennui The Walkmen have finally struck out for the countryside with the aptly titled A Hundred Miles Off, trading the emetic if captivating angularity of their earlier work for a more robust sound. If <i>Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone</i> and <i>Bows and Arrows</i> presented The Walkmen as young exiles fleeing across ice-slicked fire escapes, then <i>A Hundred Miles Off</i> sees them granted asylum in some bucolic protectorate. The Walkmen’s sense of shimmering dislocation remains, but their “all or nothing” urgency has been replaced by a vague sense of lazy unease. “Louisiana”, <i>A Hundred Miles Off</i>’s melancholic opener, wastes no time in announcing their change in direction with a slow wash of bent guitar strings and a languid bayou tempo that owes a great deal to the Americana-tinged fantasies that Bob Dylan and The Band were cooking up in the summer of 1967. By backing off from the hypnotic two-chord strum of their earlier work The Walkmen have created a unique and affecting record imbued with an adventurous spirit that can only bode well for the group’s future work.

via Apple Music

The Clerk says

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