Heaven

I've been looking forward to this new Walkmen album for months and woke up early this morning so that I could finally buy it and download it first thing. Just finished my first listen and really liked it (although I'd heard enough of it on NPR's First Listen to know that it was good).Heaven is a nice mix of sweet mellow and driving rock. It reminds me more of  You & Me  than  Lisbon . That's a good thing to me because "You and Me" is one of my very favorite albums, not just of the Walkmen's but of any album.If you liked "You and Me" too I think you will like this new album.

These are skilled musicians putting out an excellent, mature album. Some excellent songs - We Can't Be Beat, Heartbreaker, Witches, Heaven. My drawbacks are that I'm not the biggest fan of the sound of the singer's voice and I would have preferred a better mix of rockers to ballads. But that is really just personal preference. This is a solid album and would definitely recommend to anyone that likes rock and is wanting to check out new(er) music that may not be getting played on the radio.

It's easy to take the Walkmen for granted now that they seem to have become indie rock elder statesmen, but this is a really great CD from start to finish. The opener, "We Can't Be Beat," is one of the most elegantly beautiful songs they've ever recorded, and most of the other songs, notably "Heartbreaker," "The Witch," and "The Love You Love," are first rate as well. Definitely recommended.

As a fan of all of the Walkmen's albums, I think this could be their best album start to finish. To their favor, they didn't experiment much here. The songs are well-composed and mostly straight ahead, nice rock songs. Thus, unpretentious and premium dad-rock.

This album combines the best of guitar rock with an updated hi quality low fi esque simplicity. Not a lot of great albums like this where you can play it all the way through and a get a consistently enjoyable experience from every track.

I was very happy with what I ordered. This album is one of the best by The Walkmen. It works perfect, sounds great, and I would highly recommend buying it. great music on this album.

Let me add to the 5 star reviews. This is a fantastic album. Buy it and you will not be disappointed.

Having seen The Walkmen for the first time live recently - I was blown away and this album does the same.

When you are trying to follow two albums of the quality of 2008's You And Me and 2010's Lisbon, it should perhaps come as not too much of a surprise that the latest album from The Walkmen, 2012's Heaven is something of a disappointment. Don't get me wrong, Heaven has many things going for it, with some nice guitar hooks from Paul Maroon and another display of superlative (albeit rather mellower) vocals from Hamilton Leithauser, but, for me, the inspirational (and dynamic) songwriting that spawned the likes of Juveniles, Four Provinces, Angela Surf City and I Lost You from the previous two albums is simply lacking here.Having said this, the album gets off to a superb start with the acoustic-based We Can't Be Beat, featuring a truly mesmerising vocal from Leithauser, with a nice harmony vocal backing before the song morphs (courtesy of Maroon's guitar riffs) into a soaring vocal conclusion. Maroon is also outstanding on The Witch, one of the album's less conventional songs with a sound harking back to earlier recordings. Even on what are some of the album's highpoints, featuring great guitar and beginning to use Matt Barrick as the great drummer that he undoubtedly is, songs like Heartbreaker, Nightingales and The Love You Love (with its superb chorus) the band seem to stop short of transforming the songs from their embryonic shoots into fully fledged classics (I'm sure there's a mixed metaphor there somewhere), and I can't help feeling there's rather too much 'stadium-like' chanting here for comfort. I will admit though that both Song For Leigh and album's title track do feature heavenly harmonious vocals, albeit delivering rather saccharine-heavy lyrics.I did wonder whether perhaps the album's cover hints at the reasons for the band's more retiring and restrained sound here. Whilst the sight of the band's young offspring makes pleasant viewing, does this mean they've already reached their slippers and Ovaltine phase? I do hope not. At least, my 15 or so listens to the album thus far have not convinced me that Heaven stands up well to the band's earlier efforts. Let's just hope the next 15 serve to do this.

This is the first album by this band I have owned. I feel somewhat ashamed that they have been making music around a decade and I have only just now discovered them. I thought I was smart about picking up on hot new bands before anyone else. Clearly I'm not as smart as I thought I was. The other thing that puzzles me is WHY I haven't heard about them before... for god's sake, in a normal world the Walkmen would be huge.By rights, this record should be huge. Its got hooks, tunes, foot tapping anthems, cunning arrangements, superb musicianship, sad and beautiful songs - the works! However, another part of me is glad that they remain a best-kept secret. Glad for ME that I can slip this treasure into my CD player and feel like its MINE, ALL mine, my preciousssss.... let the rest of the fools continue to marvel over their million selling dogturds, WE the smart and savvy tastemakers, have The Walkmen, and by god, that is the way it should be.

I am a relative newcomer to the Walkmen only started listening to them recently but of the albums i owe of theirs this is by far the best and a real progression from lisbon which is also a great album in its own rights. The highlights for me are We Cant be beat, Heaven, Heartbreaker and Love is luck. I saw them at the Ritz in Manchester on 30/10/12 and it has got to be one of the best concerts i have seen in years, the band played and look sharp. I hope they start to get the wider recognition they really deserve.

let's face it, when we all first hear the Walkmen's records back in the day we were enchanted. But who else woke up one day, ten years on, and realised that Walkmen had quietly become their favourite band of the decade without them even realising it? I love how they just carved up a little' space for themselves away from all the indie bonanza and kept polishing their own thing until it became this. Simply put.....This album is stunning. The Walkmen can do no wrong in my eyes.

I love the Walkmen and their sound.The previous albums I've bought have contained a handful of really outstanding tracks mingled with ones I'm not as keen on.For me, Heaven is the most consistent album the Walkmen have made so far: every track is a winner on this one.