– We are trying to make it very classic sounding and also very rich sounding with a lot of detail. Sort of the opposite approach from Lisbon. And on a bunch of the songs we are using more traditional structures like verse, chorus, verse, chorus bridge, chorus. Like the Beatles or something. And we have discovered that if you put the same words in every chorus and those words refer loosely to what you’re saying in the verses, the song holds together much better. Maybe thats why people have been doing that for so long. It took us ten years to figure that out. We are also trying to make it sound very clear and crisp so you can actually hear what we are doing for once. The lyrical themes are mostly romantic. And I think the music is very american sounding somehow. I’d say overall its shaping up to be a very classic american somewhat dark romantic album. There’s not a ton of keys on the record so far. But we’re not done. Pete’s playing more guitar. There is some bitchin Vox Continental on a couple songs and some cool piano on one. We’ll see. We’re not done. We try to be different on every record and to repeat ourselves as little as possible. Sometimes we’ll bring back an old song and it’ll give us an idea for a new song. We started playing the title track from the first record on our Lisbon tours and we have new song called “Love You Love” that steals the beat and vibe a little from it. We’re used to playing loose and sloppy and casual and thinking its cool. Sloppy is cool for sure but we’re adults now and its a welcome change to try to be precise and in tune and on beat. We all think this will be the best record we’ve ever made.

Walter Martin, The Walkmen, januar 2012