Hamilton Leithauser rocks 'Black Hours' at the Prince

At first, Hamilton Leithauser thought his debut solo album would turn into a big band orchestral project. For 13 years, Leithauser had fronted the Philly/Brooklyn band the Walkmen, singing their dramatic rock-and-roll songs, but when the group decided to go on an indefinite, amicable hiatus following 2013's excellent Heaven and a farewell show at Union Transfer (before which the group served fans a spaghetti dinner), Leithauser had to redefine his work, knowing that his wide-ranging, forceful tenor would be forever linked to the Walkmen's sound. The recent CD Black Hours finds him stretching both his singing and his writing.

"At first, my biggest fear was that people would be tired of the Walkmen, tired of hearing about the Walkmen breaking up, and then I would come out with my Walkmen-sounding record," Leithauser says. "I don't think it sounds like that. People haven't told me it sounds like the Walkmen, so I think I got away from that."

The record opens with a pair of noirish, string-laden tunes, "5 A.M." and "The Silent Orchestra," which find Leithauser crooning forcefully. As he worked on the songs, Leithauser had in mind the after-hours saloon singing of Frank Sinatra, but his tone differs slightly.

"I did have a moment when this sort of reminded me of September of My Years, which is, like, comically dramatic. I think Sinatra is not joking on his record, and I'm not joking in my songs, but I do see a lighter side than I think he sees. That's the impression he gives, that he is deathly serious about all of the downer moments that he's singing about," Leithauser says.

"I felt that my major breakthrough was when I realized I could do these dark, dramatic things but maintain a lightness to the attitude behind it. In my mind, I'm conscious of In the Wee Small Hours and September of My Years, but it doesn't actually sound like that. It sounds more like a Harry Nilsson record, or Tom Waits, to me."

But Leithauser referenced Sinatra in the initial news release for Black Hours, and some reviews have used that to define the whole album.

"That's only the starting point," he says. "The first song maybe sounds like that, and the second one has a big band orchestration, but once you get past that, it's like a rock-and-roll record."

He's right. The third song, "Alexandra," is a quick-moving, thumping track that finds Leithauser shouting and sneering rather than crooning, and later the record dips into a warped country sing-along ("I Retired"), moody, ringing guitar rock ("Self-Pity," which almost became the album's title), and even an insistent Walkmen-like anthem ("The Silent Splinter").

That last song, and others, features Walkmen guitarist Paul Maroon, and he will be in Leithauser's band at the Prince. Don't expect an evening of Sinatra-style ballads.

"It's definitely even more of a rock-and-roll show than a rock-and-roll record, but I think we've definitely got something good coming across now," Leithauser says.