Just about a year after The Walkmen announced they would be going on an “extreme hiatus,” lead singer and songwriter Hamilton Leithauser has made a record with some super talented friends, and headed out on a national tour in support of it. It rolled through Cambridge this past week and Leithauser and his band straight up ran through the ten tracks on Black Hours like an exercise. Not being a Walkmen aficionado, I heard the rollicking first single “Alexandra” off of this record and wasn’t initially able to make the connection between his name and the group that just entered my musical stratosphere by the time they disbanded.  Apparently I wasn’t alone as the Sinclair was only about half filled on a summery Thursday, and after hyping the show to some friends who were big Walkmen fans (of the first two albums, anyways) they were also unaware of who this Leithauser character was, but all agreed he had a great name.

Hamilton Leithauser — it sounds almost presidential. How could you not take a stab at going solo with a name like that? And after seeing this show, I repeated this only with, how could he not take a stab at going solo with a voice like that?  Then, on top of the name and the voice, Leithauser clearly has some shit to get off his chest.

The half-filled room did feel a bit awkward with the big slacker-preppy statuesque figure that is Leithauser.  Most of the night he just sang, no guitar, with one foot on a monitor staring blankly towards the back of the room at what seemed like a much bigger crowd in his imagination.  Opening with “I Don’t Need Anyone” was clearly a mission statement.  Then an awesome “Alexandra,” “11 O’clock Friday Night,” and “I retired” all set a great tone that the audience seemed to be missing as they were almost immovable.  Perhaps the room was filled with stubborn Walkmen fans that were a little unabashed by his more palatable and mainstream exposes.

That’s the way you could summarize Leithauser’s first outing as a solo artist. If the lyrics are any insight to the inner workers of his mind, he might have been the voice of dissent pushing the band to go in other directions they might have been reluctant to go in. If these songs, especially “Alexandra,” were Walkmen songs they would have been their biggest songs to date, blowing them up and alienating their snootier fanbase. Throwing the “hiatus” tag on the Walkmen leaves the door open and allows Leithauser to flush out what seems like some built up frustration in the meantime. “I retired” is a perfect example.  His voice is highlighted and clear enough to allow you to dig in as he croons “as long as I keep the train a rolling” over a shoobeedoowop harmony that indicates he may have bigger aspirations for himself than his former bandmates had for themselves.

Then unfortunately the rest of the set waned as Leithauser’s new-found independence became a little bit too self-indulgent. Was anyone surprised by this? No, this is a man full of confidence and rightfully so, but the material didn’t hold up throughout the second part of the short forty minute set as well as the beginning. “I’ll Never Love Again” was flat out boring and became a little unauthentic after repeating the title over and over again to close the song, only then to introduce his band which included his wife! What balls on this guy! “5 AM” dragged along as well, and perhaps would have worked better with the string and piano parts on the record. That’s a nitpicky criticism I had with the second part of the set. Much of the record is so well produced with all these classic big band arrangements, that to not even try to recreate some of it with your whipped together five piece felt a little bit like false advertising. At the same time I understand that lugging a giant upright piano around, and paying a string section to travel around the country might be kind of a pain in the ass and unrealistic financially.

Overall, the set started so strong and just faded away. The obviously sober crowd did eventually give Leithauser some love towards the end, demanding the “Bless your heart” encore which just seemed to fill out some time before he apologetically said, “That’s all we have.” I get it, that’s all you have buddy, it’s your first solo record, but it was an expensive ticket ($23 & $27 day of) to only play a forty minute set to people giving you a chance. Or  how about putting some of your best songs towards the end of the set? Genius idea right? Because when he played all his best stuff first I’m sure there were plenty of Walkmen fans teased into hoping he’d take advantage of his writing credits and break out least a couple Walkmen tunes he felt some sole ownership of.  Everything else indicates that he doesn’t really feel that bad about leaving any of his bandmates behind and their your songs goddamnit, at some point your gonna have to give the people  a taste of what they want. Especially if you made them dig a little bit deeper in their pockets than they normally would to check out someone’s first attempt at a more mainstream solo career. Either way, Hamilton Leithauser is a huge talent that just needs some more quality songs to solidify his live act. The scary part is that if he pulls that off, or starts playing his best Walkmen songs, it could diminish the hopes of ever seeing that band re-assemble again. Oh well.