Label: Glassnote

Released: March 7th, 2025

This Side of the Island is the sound of Hamilton Leithauser loving his work.

The album is co-produced by Leithauser’s wife, Anna Stumpf, and The National’s Aaron Dessner. Leithauser’s gift for lyricism and playful instrumental layers are on full display in a labor of love that took eight years of effort.

The album balances nostalgic lyrics with upbeat and anthemic rhythms. It’s the audio equivalent of flipping through old photo albums filled with disposable camera snapshots of people you hardly know now.

The LP’s cover features a watercolor sunset over the ocean, the paper rippled with dried droplets. It gives a sense of the physical, retro media that’s deservedly making a comeback into the mainstream. Leithauser manages to create a timeless work without relying too heavily on established tropes from any particular genre. It’s experimental, but not at all unrecognizable. Undoubtedly, it will sound even better when it is released on vinyl.

There’s the saxophone in “Ocean Roar,” three basses in “Knockin’ Heart” and Leithauser’s self-harmonizing throughout. None of it is groundbreaking on its own, but put it all together and you’ve got a record that will give you something new to notice and appreciate on each listen.

“Knockin’ Heart” is a standout single with energetic drums and lyrics that will appeal to fans of “A 1000 Times,” Leithauser’s 2016 hit with Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij. Leithauser bellows, “From the courtship to the chapel / From the branches to the apple / To the elegy in the boneyard / You’ll be knockin’ in my heart.” The song is accompanied by a gorgeous music video directed and animated by Gabby Sibilska.

The titular track is also the last. “This Side of the Island” starts off quiet, then dawns like a sunrise. In his distinctive mellow warble that soon crescendos to a wail, Leithauser intones, “This side of the island is built out of trash.” The woman described in the song addresses him directly as “Hammy,” making this a more personal song compared to the character studies that Leithauser employed in 2020’s “The Loves of Your Life” or on “Knockin’ Heart” (written from the perspective of a lovelorn stoner). The woman observes “Hammy, it’s not a beautiful country” (as much as she’d like it to be). It’s a hard truth on an otherwise unobtrusive album—something to think about after the instrumentals fade out.

-Lauren Textor

Hamilton Leithauser at The Drake, Toronto. Photo: Cory Weaver