Albums That Remind Me Of Summers Past, Pt. 1
The Walkmen – Bows & Arrows (2004)
If The Walkmen’s debut LP Everyone Who Pretended To Like Me Is Gone mastered the exercise of elegant passive-aggressive bitterness, their follow-up Bows & Arrows inflicted an assault of precise punches, in its more sparse and quiet moments just as much as the ones that twist and shout.
This is not a soundtrack to a holiday in the Hamptons. This is a soundtrack to a humid 4th Of July weekend spent cat-sitting for your girlfriend in an airless, unkempt railroad apartment in Hell’s Kitchen with nothing in the cupboard but a can of lentils and half bottles of gin and triple sec. You’re broke and all your friends are out of town and your only companionship (aside from the cat) is a boom box CD player to drown out the relentless whirring of the box fan on the floor. But this album spins and you square right up to the New York summer and sneer back. And if you lean your head out the 6th floor window just so, you can see the glittering pop and fade of the fireworks over the Hudson River.
Hypothetically speaking, of course.
