The Loves of Your Life

With the Walkmen and on his first two albums after that band went on hiatus, Hamilton Leithauser collaborated with some of indie rocks brightest lights. On The Loves of Your Life, he continues that trend, but is working alone. Along with all the singing and songwriting, Leithauser produced the album and played everything on it, but unlike many one-person projects, it never feels insular. In fact, The Loves of Your Life is often looser and freer than any of his previous solo work. Where Black Hours and I Had a Dream That You Were Mine sometimes felt like fading memories, this album is all about the life in its title. Leithausers songs burst with the joy and vibrancy of experiencing different kinds of love, and how their presence continues to be important, rather than something to stow away in the past. On the bustling Cross-Sound Ferry, the old times and the present rub elbows in the form of old friends and young family; on Wack Jack, the ache in Leithausers voice when he sings Wont hurt you anymore/But I still keep your picture lying in a drawer feels universal. The Loves of Your Life blends his musical past and present just as fluently. Theres still a hint of his work with Rostam Batmanglij in the albums free-flowing sound, especially when Leithauser revisits the dream doo wop of I Had a Dream That You Were Mine on The Stars of Tomorrow (somewhat tangentially, The Loves of Your Lifes literate, comfortable but not complacent vibe echoes the feel of Vampire Weekends first album without Batmanglij, Father of the Bride). Of course, there are still echoes of the Walkmen in Leithausers music, particularly on Til Your Ship Comes Ins rattling, reverbed stomp, but he continues to take that sound in his own very personal directions. The albums earthy, largely acoustic palette suits the grounded yet rollicking nature of songs such as Here They Come and Isabella, where breezy pedal steel and harmonies hark back to the country-pop of the late 70s and early 80s. Similarly, Leithausers songwriting feels more intimate and immediate without losing any of its poetry. He begins The Other Halfs soulful pop reverie with a line worthy of a novel: I could hear your knuckles on the walnut boards. On Dont Check the Score, a sweetly roundabout way of telling someone close to him to be happy with the way things turned out, he drags out each word of the lyric You left your lipstick kissed into a paper cup half-filled with ginger ale like he doesnt want to let it go. By the time The Loves of Your Life closes with the joyous The Old King, Leithauser stretches his music into a wide embrace of the past and present thats all the more impressive because it feels so lived-in and genuine. ~ Heather Phares