Fat Possum

They’re no longer indie-pop’s poster boys but The Walkmen were doing the whole “euphoric vocals over peppy, disenchanted electric guitar strum” routine long before it turned into the Webster’s definition. Heaven, their fantastic seventh full-length, isn’t a sonic re-invention; it’s just the typical goods: winsome melodies and blissful six-strings unfurling in oceans of reverb. “It’s not the singer; it’s the song,” Hamilton Leithauser sings on the whip-smart “Heartbreaker.” He has a point: The Walkmen still show twice as much charm as personality. But, damn, are they charming. “The Love You Love” is a tasty, epic rocker defined by the tight guitar interplay of Leithauser and Paul Maroon. On “Nightingales,” a furiously strummed rhythm guitar bleats like a helicopter propeller; “Song for Leigh” is – legitimately – modern day Byrds.