Bows and Arrows' is not quite what Cupid had in mind

From the start, it's been clear that The Walkmen are somewhat pessimistic. They almost had us fooled into thinking otherwise. Their debut album featured tinkly piano and bouncy high-hat cymbals, the band was accepted by mainstream culture, and their single, "We've Been Had," was featured in a Saturn commercial and in the Jack Black film School of Rock. Two characters even have an important conversation in front of one of the band's posters.

But this was all a ruse. The title of their debut album, Everyone Who Pretended to Like Me is Gone, indicates the band's propensity toward self-loathing and aggression, and this trait is realized in full on their new release, Bows and Arrows.

In 1998, The Walkmen were formed from the remains of two other bands: Jonathan Fire*Eater and The Recoys. After tossing away the asterisk and a weak vocalist, guitarist Paul Maroon, drummer Matt Barrick, and organist Walter Martin of Jonathan Fire*Eater picked up bass player Pete Bauer and singer Hamilton Leithauser and adopted a more New York scene-y sounding "the" name.

Bows and Arrows doesn't offer a very optimistic outlook for love, but that's the point. The Walkmen's sophomore release is full of self-loathing and hostility, but it's blended with such musical virtuosity that you're left with a feeling of indignant righteousness and disdain for sappy love songs.

Leithauser is not your typical snarling rock singer. Instead, his yowling sounds more like a drunken opera singer or Bob Dylan when he strains to reach notes (except that Leithauser always hits them). The best example of this is on "The Rat," the amazing first single from Bows and Arrows. Leithauser spews out "The Rat" like a boa constrictor in reverse, unhinging his jaw and gorging himself on angst as he expels the song from his belly: "Can't you SEEAAAHHH me! I'm! Pounding onnnn YOUUAAAHHR DOAAAAHHHR!!!"

Songs like "No Christmas While I'm Talking" makes you feel like you're taking crazy pills. Maroon's guitar wails in the background as Barrick's drumming builds thunderously like a train that's about to hit you and Leithauser vocally represents the disquietude the song induces in the listener.

And yet, while Leithauser's singing is interesting (and sometimes mind-boggling), the real front man of The Walkmen isn't a member, but an effect. Bows and Arrows is full of incredible percussive elements. "The Rat" could easily just be an exercise in self pity. Lyrics such as "When I used to go out/I'd know everyone/Now I go out alone/If I go out at all" demonstrate that. In "Thinking of a Dream I Had," the first 40 seconds are a frenzied mix of alternating bass guitar and bass drum, clangy rhythmic guitar, and sleigh bells.

The sleigh bells seem like a weird choice for a rock band, but they work on Bows and Arrows, just as they did on Everyone. There, they backed Leithauser's optimism that "we've begun to work things out." Here, they supplement the angry "don't lead me on."

Across the board, The Walkmen expound on the angst they demonstrated in Everyone with their tracks in Bows and Arrows. The band shifts from innocuous listlessness to emotional abuse. "New Year's Eve" takes the cute awkwardness of "Stop Talking" from Everyone and crassly distorts it: "I'll take your hand in another one night stand." The guitar work in "The North Pole" is reminiscent of Everyone's title track, but it counters that na‹vet‚ with the accusation, "seen you with your new boyfriend."

Even what the band calls one of its "lighter" tracks, "Hang On Siobhan," is pointedly world-weary, featuring lines like "got tired of it day after day after day" and "you're a mystery to me/but you don't hear me asking around."

Bows and Arrows makes you want to spend Valentine's Day alone, rather than subject yourself to the volatile nature of relationships that it presents.