Track of the Day: The Walkmen - "Dance With Your Partner" & "Vermeer '65"

Known for their expansive recording sessions and globe traversing writing techniques, The Walkmen have never been short on new, diverse material. This year's album Heaven was a masterful number, a lesson in what it means to let go of inhibitions and attack your craft with no preconceived notions of what it needs to be. But it was also mature and introspective in a lot of ways. In talking with the band just after the release of Heaven, that was mostly what they emphasized, that Heaven is a record made without expectations or ill-advised weight applied to their proverbial shoulders. This approach was obvious, even down to the packaging and marketing of Heaven, a record which prominently shows the faces of the group with their children in haunting black and white photography. The whole of the periphery surrounding Heaven was minimalistic, and that truly let the music speak for itself.

And now, the band is beginning to share some of the b-sides from that recording session. Both "Dance With Your Partner" and "Vermeer '65" are simple acoustic guitar and vocal driven tracks, but it's their basic execution that leads to the heartfelt moments discovered within. For songs that failed to make the album's pressing, "Dance With Your Parter" and "Vermeer '65" are both immediately impressive in their balance of earnest folk and room commanding energy. The two new tracks are set to be released by Fat Possum on 7" vinyl, limited to 1,000 copies. Pre-orders are available now.