The Walkmen

New York City-based band The Walkmen performed a variety of their songs from their five-album catalog to fans of their soul-rock style Sept. 30 at One Eyed Jacks.

No strangers to New Orleans, The Walkmen have played here several times in the past few years, paying tribute to the city that has so influenced their style . It would be hard to imagine the band’s sound without their small brass band backing up frontman Hamilton Leithauser’s crooning vocals.

They took advantage of One Eyed Jacks’s dark, intimate atmosphere by giving fans exactly what they wanted: a mixture of fuzzy, distorted, guitar-heavy songs and delicate, soulful ballads.

The Walkmen played all their usual crowd-pleasers: “Louisiana,” “Red Moon” and “In The New Year” but remained fairly distant from the crowd. They seemed reluctant to leave their own progressive-rock universe, but the crowd didn’t mind. Leithauser’s passionate vocals mesmerized almost everyone at the crowded venue. The sound quality and stage lighting were both excellent.

It was refreshing to see a band touring just for the hell of it. They haven’t released an album in more than a year, and it seemed like they just felt like raging in New Orleans, which they did.

Leithauser screamed the lyrics at the top of his lungs, which hardly had a break over the roughly hour-and-a-half-long set. He put his voice to the test with encore song “The Rat” and delivered a strong performance.

The band has finished recording its untitled sixth studio album, which will be released sometime next spring. Let’s hope they come again early next year and put on a show as lively as this one was. Maybe next time they’ll interact with the crowd more than they’re accustomed to doing — we’d appreciate it.