The Walkmen’s 'Bows + Arrows' remains the perfect non-Christmas Christmas album

The idea of a concept album can be intriguing and lord knows it’s been approached from every single angle (thank you Beck, Flaming Lips and Tom Waits, who recently turned 75). However, perhaps the single most popular—and most cliched—concept idea is naturally the perfunctory Christmas album. I’m not throwing shade on the crooners of old, no no. I’m referring to modern bands trying their hand at either A.) covering the classics, or B.) attempting to write an entirely new holiday jam. When I see a sleek tinsel-covered CD featuring a dozen or so glib carol covers by some relatively new band, my eyes can’t roll far enough back into my skull, Sufjan Stevens excluded.

That being said, The Walkmen’s 2004 album Bows + Arrows is a sneaky little thing.

I recall picking up the CD—yes, jewel case and all—from a Barnes & Noble ages ago some December, flipping it over and immediately forming questions. It was my first experience with The Walkmen and the monochrome image of several clean-shaven and well-dressed dudes mid-band meeting wasn’t very telling. Were they choirboys from New York? Mormons who’d landed a record deal? Moreover, a cursory glance at the song titles was even more baffling as three of the ten tracks had a distinctive winter title.

The most blatant, “No Christmas While I'm Talking”, is a stark and bitter valley studded with rising bursts of cymbals crashing against Hamilton Leithauser’s distinctive vibrato before sinking back into the mire. Lyrically, it’s a painful lament that turns into a jagged imperative against a former lover. Hardly the fuzzy Christmas fare. 

The Walkmen encounter The North Pole

Moving through the album, “The North Pole” kicks off with an up-tempo beat resembling sleigh bells that chugs along via guitar and the occasional organ-driven bridge, complete with references to taking the train uptown assuringly amidst snowy elements. To me, the standout track though is the ephemeral end-of-the-year/world singalong “New Year’s Eve” that bounces to a jangly piano banging out chords that could’ve been played in a neighborhood bar. 

Since discovering The Walkmen, I’ve dug into their catalog front to back, and while their debut album “Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me Is Gone” is excellent, I keep returning to Bows + Arrows. Is it because the album oozes New York cool? Partially. Is it because they were featured on the teen drama TV show The O.C.? Not at all. 

Every song on Bows + Arrows encapsulates how I imagine the holiday season in Manhattan to sound, regardless of the track title or lyrics. It’s a specific mood that’s equal parts aloof, jaded, inebriated and hopeful. The album manages to stay Christmas adjacent, while keeping one foot firmly planted in the post-rock revival sound of the 00’s, which is no small feat and one not repeated by their contemporaries. 

Like Die Hard, Bows + Arrows is always on rotation when December comes around simply because it wasn’t designed to be, and that fills me with cheer.