The Walkmen owning their own practice space and recording studio up in Harlem is both a blessing and a curse. It lets them spread out in a wonderland of cool vintage equipment and craft a genuinely unique sound, but it also means that every song recorded using their cool vintage equipment sounds exactly the same. A Hundred Miles Off sticks closely to the sound of their last two records. There’s no immediate standout single like the explosive ‘The Rat’ from Bows + Arrows, but listening to the rest of the Walkmen’s material makes it clear that they never wanted a bunch of misplaced Strokes comparisons thrown at them anyway. This record may be same-y, but none of it’s bad: ‘Tenley Town’ is basically a Stooges song, and the band’s cover of Mazarin’s ‘Another One Goes By,’ despite being no more than a lazy run-through, is still a nod to a great (though actually, much better) band.
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