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The Walkmen – HEAVEN

First Published in The Big Issue, June, 2012

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Photos of The Walkmen’s wives and small children decorate Heaven’s sleeve design. It’s no pastiche of happy snaps; it’s an exercise in branding. But why does something so normal look so strange? It’s because when The Walkmen flaunt their happy domesticity, they break rock & roll mythmaking rule #1: don’t seem traditional. Furthermore, their trademark tension has melted away. You could play Heaven while the baby sleeps.

Replacing the brash, rasping barroom ballads of yore is the lullaby-like guitar licks of ‘Line by Line’ and the 1950s croon of ‘No One Ever Sleeps’, where singer Hamilton Leithauser coaxes back the spirit of Jeff Buckley. Traditionally The Walkmen compress vintage organ and guitar into a jangling weapon of trauma, but on Heaven Leithauser’s  voice is the primary heart-stirrer and he etches out the soft, sad beauty of ‘Southern Heart’ nearly unaccompanied. Our children will always hear/Romantic tales of distant years, he sings on the title track, confirming the rage that spawned 2004’s underground hit ‘The Rat’ has long mellowed into the farsighted meditations of fatherhood.

[rating: 3]

***

 

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My name is Kate Hennessy. I am a freelance arts and travel writer and music critic. I contribute to Guardian Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald/The Age, The Saturday Paper, The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, The Wire (UK), NME and more.

Latest posts

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    February 19, 2022
  • The ‘Yolŋu surf rock’ of Yothu Yindi’s next generation

    February 17, 2022
  • A gentle hidden gem: a visitor’s guide to the NSW far south coast

    January 8, 2022
  • ‘An inscrutable and open-ended riddle’: the life and art of Jeffrey Smart

    December 11, 2021
  • Trekking the Great Ocean Walk: ‘Stand with no land mass between your sweaty skin and Antarctica’

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