The Walkmen: Bows And Arrows

Reviewed by GRAHAM REID

(Herald rating: * * *)

Sometimes I miss that ragged rock'n'roll with the croaky-voiced singer wailing or complaining his way over a thrilling wall of repetitive, sandpaper guitar noise. You know there's a melody in there but the way it is sidestepped only makes the song more appealing.

And then they cut back on the guitar thrash and go almost sensitive with simple ballads.

I miss this stuff: the Replacements delivered the broad sweep, the Clean offered one end, a whole swag of U2 acolytes did the other.

The Walkmen - about whom I know only that they are a fairly itinerant American five-piece because they've recorded these 11 songs in New York, Memphis and Oxford in Mississippi - deliver a thrilling approximation of all this.

They aren't The Next Big Thing or even a potentially Important Band. No one is going to come to your flat and go, "Wow, the Walkmen. Man, I love them." No one I have spoken to has heard of them and I suspect the record company which has them will be surprised to see this review.

But on 138th Street and The North Pole they are Dylan in '66 at his most venomous, elsewhere they slot well alongside the Strokes and old Stones for unalloyed r'n'b pop-rock. The Rat offers the trash-thrash guitar-noise end with throat ravaging lyrics ("you gotta nerve to be calling my number") and Hang On, Siobhan is a regretful Shane MacGowan in his cups at 4am.

And that's it. No big message, no big concept, and probably no big deal. Just another rock'n'roll band - but Bows and Arrows has been slipping back to the top of the pile at my place for weeks, I've not seen them reviewed anywhere else, and I'll probably not miss them in a month.

For now, though, the Walkmen (from Washington DC but based in New York, I am told) are a necessary reminder that disposable rock'n'roll provides mindless escapism at very high volume (The Rat, Thinking of a Dream I Had) or (as on Hang on, Siobhan and the title track) lets you practise your melancholy ballad voice when everyone's out of the house.

Invite everyone to leave, and play your Walkmen.


Label: Warners