Brooklyn musician Hamilton Leithauser returns with This Side of the Island, an album he’s worked on for the past eight years. Although Leithauser primarily writes and records at his home studio, the Struggle Hut, he went to Aaron Dessner’s Long Pond Studio (now famous for Dessner’s work with Taylor Swift) to complete the project. Leithauser co-produced the record with his wife, Anna Stumpf, but Dessner provided unexpected instrumentation and, in Leithauser’s words, “raised the ceiling and lowered the floor on the entire thing sonically”.
The LP captures sounds that Leithauser had not yet put to tape, combinations that arguably nobody has. All the hallmarks of the artist’s songcraft are there, including his striking vocals, catchy melodies, and powerful rhythmic cadence. Once the record stops spinning, following its final arcadian notes, listeners will know Leithauser has taken another step forward, as This Side of the Island is refreshing and rewarding.
This Side of the Island kicks off with one of the best one-two punches in the singer’s catalogue, whether it be his solo material or work with the Walkmen. “Fist of Flowers” and “Burn the Boats” both incorporate female backing vocals and hear Leithauser grasping notes nearly out of reach. Leithauser wrote the opener, “Fist of Flowers”, back when Barack Obama was President, which now seems like such an idyllic time. The track incorporates core-shaking drums, saloon-style piano, and nimble wordplay.
“Burn the Boats” can be interpreted through the eyes of a child, one sweating through a crisp shirt and trying to make sense of the adult talk above. Leithauser incorporates objectively funny lyrics like, “Yeah, I polished off my applesauce an hour ago / And I lost my head / And I wanna go home.” Even if we’re no longer children, can’t we all relate? The “do-do-do-do” refrain charms in its simplicity. To say these new sounds are refreshing is an understatement.
Lead single “Knockin’ Heart” was the last track Leithauser shared with Dessner and perhaps the one he took the most care in preserving, as it stayed in the same form for over a year following his original recording (composed in one night, no less). It finds a besotted and yearning individual, trying desperately to get his message of love across to another. The intensity is fully realized through the roaring guitar and hammering drums, but it can also be felt in the words: “Just dying all the way home tonight over you” and “there’s no one who’s gonna need you like I do tonight”. “Knockin’ Heart” underscores the fine line between passion and stalking.
The most notable quality of This Side of the Island is the instrumentation. Nearly every song has unique and sophisticated percussion, and specific sounds stand out on tracks, which can be pulled apart and analyzed for hours. Some prime examples include the street-performer-on-the-corner style saxophone on “Ocean Roar”, the jazzy funeral dirge of “What Do You Think”, colored with xylophone and horns, and the strong female backing vocals and slide guitar on “I Was Right”. Listeners will be blown away by Dessner’s production, just as Leithauser was.
Many of the tracks on Side B take time to blossom, as they don’t contain the hooks in what came before. “Off the Beach”, potentially influenced by Neil Young‘s On the Beach (which Leithauser admitted to drawing influence from), moves leisurely. He channels friend and former collaborator Kevin Morby in terms of musical phrasing.
The closer “This Side of the Island” opens quietly and features some poignant lyrics: “This side of the island is built out of trash / Our love and our city were built to collapse.” The focus expands to the USA’s more significant, more dire state. Despite the bleak outlook, the song turns celebratory in nature, with one final plea—”I just want you to love me the way I love you”.
Leithauser has undergone some changes over the past decade as a solo artist, from his Frank Sinatra-crooning on Black Hours (2014) to the folk-rock of The Loves of Your Life (2020). Some of the most compelling tracks on This Side of the Island help to recreate the magic of previous highlights yet still feel tied to the borough.
For the most part, though, Hamilton Leithauser seems content exploring another side of his craft, one with equally commanding vocals, more finesse, and pleasant surprises along the way. Even if the record remains pure Bedford Stuyvesant art, it will echo across the bay and resonate with listeners everywhere.