April 7, 2004

A Blend of Exasperation, Exhaustion and Bravado

he Walkmen's songs have a chronic case of the jitters, and that's what makes them work so well. It's the jangle of too much caffeine after too little sleep, and it's a New York state of mind that the Walkmen inhabited fully when they performed at Irving Plaza on April 1.

Songs from the band's new album, "Bows and Arrows" (Record Collection), often sound like arguments that haven't ended; they confront lovers, friends, scenemakers and artistic dilemmas with anything but studied cool. Hamilton Leithauser's voice is perpetually strained and scratchy, as if he's just come from a long shouting match. And in each song there is an element that chafes against the rest of the music: a scrabbling guitar, a doubletime drumbeat, an immovable organ chord with an insistent vibrato.

The music's internal tension puts a frazzled edge on songs that have absorbed New York rock from the Velvet Underground and electric Bob Dylan to the Ramones and the Contortions. The Walkmen's local rivals, the Strokes, draw on many of the same elements, and the two bands' song structures might look similar as sheet music. But in performance, there's no mistaking one band for the other. While the Strokes play with focused, controlled dynamics and seem to have everything neatly plotted out, the Walkmen leave loose ends that just might be live wires.

Their set at Irving Plaza was brawny and bristling. Matt Barrick's walloping, implacable drumbeats left space for the wobbly chords from Walter Martin's electric organ and for Paul Maroon's guitar, sometimes strummed hard, sometimes hovering above the fray with clear picking or frantic tremolos. Mr. Leithauser sought the spotlight at times and also ducked it. He sang lines like "You've got a nerve to be asking a favor" or "I made the best of it" with a vehement blend of exasperation, exhaustion and bravado. The songs wrangled with both the world and themselves, knowing that nothing would be resolved anytime soon.

Mazarin, a band from Philadelphia that shared the bill, provided order as a prelude to the Walkmen's tumult. Quentin Stoltzfus, Mazarin's leader, is fond of patterns, and most of the songs were built on a metronomic drumbeat and meshes of bass and guitars that hinted at both the Minimalist constructions of Stereolab and the guitar-driven side of New Order. As he sang abstract thoughts and straightforward confessions - "I could have told you/I know I know I know" - in his high tenor voice, the music chimed and surged, bringing grandeur and momentum to his musings.