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As a solo artist,
Hamilton Leithauser takes the elements that made his band
the Walkmen so special -- literate songwriting, a nostalgic but not navel-gazing sound, and a voice that sounds equally natural whether crooning or wailing -- in more personal directions. On 2014's
Black Hours, he updated the torchy sounds of '50s and '60s vocal pop; with 2016's
I Had a Dream That You Were Mine, he fused vintage rock and soul and 21st century indie in otherworldly ways; and on 2020's
The Loves of Your Life, he animated his memoirist songwriting with vibrant, urgent music.
When
the Walkmen went on hiatus following 2011's
Heaven,
Leithauser embarked on his solo career. He assembled a crack team of supporting musicians to work on his new material, including
Vampire Weekend's
Rostam Batmanglij,
Fleet Foxes'
Morgan Henderson,
the Shins'
Richard Swift,
Dirty Projectors'
Amber Coffman, and his
Walkmen bandmate
Paul Maroon. Recorded at Los Angeles' Vox Studios,
Leithauser's debut album,
Black Hours -- which was inspired by
Frank Sinatra's music and prefaced by the single "Alexandra" -- was released in May 2014. In 2015,
Leithauser and
Maroon issued Dear God, a vinyl-only collection of stripped-down covers and originals that they followed with I Could Have Sworn, an EP for 2016's Record Store Day.
Leithauser re-teamed with
Batmanglij for 2016's
I Had a Dream That You Were Mine. Recorded at
Batmanglij's home studio in Los Angeles, the pair borrowed the best of their previous bands as well as '50s and '60s rock and soul with postmodern abandon. On April 2020's lively yet intimate
The Loves of Your Life,
Leithauser took on all of the writing, producing, and recording duties. ~ Heather Phares