With Panda Bear currently distracted by his busy itinerary of chilling out, maxing, relaxing all-cool, and shooting some b-ball outside of the school, the “I am familiar with the City of Lisbon” cred-door has been ajar for the last little while. Cue the swoop-in of monstrously tall frontman Hamilton Leithauser and his raggedy band of indie rock cohorts in The Walkmen.
Yes, their new album is titled Lisbon, presumably in homage to Noah Lennox’s adopted home, and the bulk of it was recorded in warehouses in Brooklyn (a-ha! the B-word!) and Philadelphia. They did also write at least a few of the album’s songs on trips to that titular City, which I’m sure the band would describe, if pressed to do so, as “total bliss-outs.” John Congleton (St. Vincent/Mountain Goats/Thermals) produced the 11-track jam session, with Passion Pit/Les Savy Fav veteran Chris Zane engineering. While it’s not mentioned specifically in any of my sources, I’m also pretty sure they tracked straight to mini-disc.
And even though Leithauser spoke to Pitchfork this past winter about the band’s new fondness for early Elvis and Sun Records artists, I think its pretty clear that those influences for the follow-up to You & Me (TMT Review) are decoys. My assumption is that Lisbon is chock-full of cutting edge trance/folk mashups, Gergorian Chant samples, and Javanese Gamelan hooks in the choruses. And heck, with a release date of September 14 via Fat Possum, its looking like it’ll probably even beat the new Panda Bear record’s street date to boot. That’s it, I’m calling for “album of the year” right the fuck now. Who’s with me?
• The Walkmen: http://www.myspace.com/thewalkmen
• Fat Possum: http://www.fatpossum.com
