The Walkmen
For their sixth studio album, this months Lisbon, the characteristically cacophonous Walkmen made a conscious effort to scale things back a bit. We tried for a very bare instrumentation on this, the bands frontman Hamilton Leithauser told me on a recent phone call. We really turned the reverb down a lot, which for us is a big step. The result is a stripped-down and, at times, stunningly elegant collection of music but thats not to say the bands lost any of its raw energy for their upcoming tour, which kicks off tonight; and while the tours focus is Lisbon, he also promises to keep the bands longtime fans in mind. We always play The Rat, he says. People always want to hear it. With The Helio Sequence. ERIN K. THOMPSON
Wed., Sept. 8, 8 p.m., 2010
