Hamilton Leithauser

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