Through the rumble of muddy guitars and anxious toms, The Walkmen's "On the Water" paints an ominous scene. After three albums and a track-for-track re-creation of Harry Nilsson's Pussy Cats, You & Me successfully captures the tone of the band's past by tempering its brash and clattering rock with road-weary introspection.
The arid mood boils slowly, bringing to mind an indie-rock score for a spaghetti Western or an unwritten Cormac McCarthy novel about a life passing by. Singer Hamilton Leithauser's words — "Walking down this dirt road / Watching at the sky / It's all I can do" — clearly come from a lonely place. But as the song reaches a climactic moment of clanging guitars and ghostly, whistling melodies, Leithauser's feverish howl erupts through the static. No matter how bad things get, his love, "Molly," is the only thing holding him together. Bleary-eyed and bracing, it's a vivid expression of devotion.
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