2010, Fat Possum Records

VINYL FORMAT. A new Walkmen album is always cause for celebration; that's certainly beyond dispute around these parts. Now signed to the always reliable Fat Possum, their sixth studio album Lisbon is the follow up to 2008's You & Me. Consisting of eleven tracks and recorded over two years in Philadelphia and Brooklyn warehouses (note: BK + warehouse = ALT), and partially written in - wait for it - Lisbon, Portugal, the album was produced by John Congleton (St. Vincent, The Thermals), and engineered by Chris Zane (Passion Pit, Les Savy Fav). The ghostly (and awesome, natch) cover art is by Elizabeth Spiridakis. Prepare for a Sun Records/early-Elvis inspired sound. Says main man Hamilton Leithauser (to Pitchfork): "There is a lot of stuff that's Elvis-sounding, like early Elvis and Sun Records kind of sounds. We have just so many eight-tracks over the last year; the list is just unbelievable . . . The instrumentation is very simple, and then there's a very loud vocal and a softish drum. There is a slapback guitar on everything. I don't know if it will end up being used at all, but I think that was a starting point for a lot of stuff that Paul looped with the guitar . . . With the end product, it will sound crazy that we even talk about that. It won't even sound like that at all, but that's definitely where it started."