Album Review: Hamilton Leithauser- Black Hours
“A torch singer without a flame.”
I feel like I read that as a descriptor of Lana Del Ray, and
much hyped, then maligned, album Born to
Die, two years ago. And for some reason, that’s the very first expression
that came to mind nearly instantly after I started playing Black Hours, the debut solo LP from Hamilton Leithauser.
Leithauser had spent the last decade plus as the charismatic
frontman to the much-loved New York indie rock band The Walkmen, who grew out
of their ramshackle, scrappy, jangly beginnings at the start of the 2000s, into
what I had dubbed “elder statesmen” of indie rock by the time they reached Heaven, the 2012 effort that turned out
to be their swan song.
Three of the five members of The Walkmen are on their solo
joint tips right now, including guitarist and keyboardist Pete Bauer, who in a
recent interview, made it sound like being in The Walkmen just stopped being
fun—that they spent more time arguing about what exactly the organ should sound
like on a track, rather than just hitting record on the tape and seeing what
happened.
So now rather than having to take four other opinions into
consideration, Leithauser is free to do pretty much whatever he wants on Black Hours, a record that sheds the
whole “indie” thing, fully embracing his vocal range by painting him as a bit
of a edgy crooner of sorts—like, an alternative to your Michael Bublé or
whatever if you think you’re too young or “too hip” for that kind of thing. Even
the cover art itself to this record suggests a vintage, or throw back kind of
feeling.
Opting for very polished arrangements, many of them
including twinkling pianos and lush string work, there’s nothing nearly as
angsty as “The Rat,” or as sweeping and grand as “In The New Year.” In fact, Black Hours, overall, is a rather
reserved affair—it stars slowly, waiting until the third track (and the album’s
first single) “Alexandra” to show really any kind of energy, and even then,
after that, it kind of back peddles on that momentum, retreating to mostly
slow, earnest ballads, for a majority of the record.
Looking back on some of the latter day Walkmen tracks,
specifically those found on Heaven,
their break up, and Leithauser’s interest in this style of performing can be
seen—that album’s opening track, “We Can’t Be Beat,” features the lyric, “I was the pony express, but I ran out of gas,”
and the band had never sounded so theatrical before as it does there—a song
that would actually fit in well with the set on Black Hours.
It’s in the final moments where Leithauser shows any hints
of his former band—“I Don’t Need Anyone” and “The Smallest Splinter” both dial
back the elaborate orchestration, instead, going for slightly more traditional
“indie rock” arrangements, including The Walkmen’s trademark reverbed guitar
sound.
The real flaw with this record is that it isn’t bad, but
rather, it just kind of exists. Throughout the course of the album’s ten
tracks, there’s rarely anything that is exciting, or interesting, which is too
bad, because it certainly isn’t phoned in or half-assed. There are moments that
are catchier and more listenable than others—the stomp-along “Alexandra” and
the refrain to “11 O’clock, Friday Night,” are both incredibly infectious, but
as a whole, Black Hours is a little
underwhelming, and just kind of leaves you wishing that The Walkmen were still
a functioning band.
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