Review Summary: Take that special someone's hand, and dance the night away under the stars.
Back in 2014, Hamilton Leithauser, who was previously (still ?) the lead singer of The Walkmen, released his first solo album. The album, Black Hours, featured two songs that were produced by Rostam Batmanglij. “I Retired” and “Alexandra” received most of the praise off the album due to striking vocals and harmonic tempos. Fast forwarding to 2016, The Walkmen are still on hiatus and Rostam announced his departure from Vampire Weekend to pursue his solo career. After Rostam’s announcement, it became evident through social media that him and Leithauser were reuniting to cook up a full length LP. As a result, I Had a Dream That You Were Mine is the meal we were given, and it makes me hungrier for more.
The album starts off with “A 1000 Times”, which introduces Leithauser’s powerful vocals and Rostam’s genuine rhythm. Not only is this Leithauser’s best vocal performance throughout the album, it is also the most direct song on here. Every lyrical line is straight forward, and delivers a hard punch that makes each word meaningful to the song’s story (this is very evident throughout the first few verses of the song). Rostam’s performance on the piano and guitar compliment Leithauser’s vocals, resulting in a song that captivates its audience with a catchy tune. The second track, “Sick as a Dog”, introduces the album’s first song to contain a blend of organ pipes and weary celestial effects that Rostam incorporates into many of his prominent songs. “Rough Going (I Don’t Let Up)” mostly reminisces the ‘schooby duuuop’ trait from Black Hours’ “I Retired”. It features a dark uptempo sound that makes you visualize a dull lit restaurant from the 1920’s; the audience clapping with mid swing dances around a poetry jazz band. The darkest song on this album, ironically, is “Black Out”. Its guitar melody instantly places you on your neighborhood sidewalk after midnight, accompanied by Rostam’s church choir filling the cracks in the pavement. “When the Truth Is…” successfully integrates slide guitar melodies, out of placed saxophones, and heavy Leithauser vocals, all of which weigh down its ghostly ending with Rostam’s piano hymn that relates to VW’s Hannah Hunt. The most formidable song on this album, “You Ain’t That Young Kid”, starts off with a veritable Leithauser voice that makes him seem like he’s alone in his own conscious, trying to remember the better times of his relationship. As Rostam’s spooky melody dwells down, in comes one of the best moments of this album. Rostam’s celestial effects kick in, along with acoustic guitar strains behind the stars; and Leithauser resumes with “pictures of us dancing, from a lifetime ago, a lifetime ago; you in a green dress and I in a tweed vest, in a blurry gang of ghosts”. When those lyrics hit you, you are instantly captivated into a photo album that was dug up from the early 20th century, wrapped in spiderwebs and chipped pieces of paper. As the album boils down to the end, “The Bride’s Dad” and “The Morning Stars” contain heavy built vocals, church choir verses, and isolated guitar tracks. However, “1959” takes the spotlight as the most beautiful track on I Had a Dream That You Were Mine. The beginning of a violin uprising, a gentle piano tune, and a glimpse of Angel Deradoorian’s role all carry weight for a star-watching experience like no other. The swift drum brushes and Leithauser’s voice really build up the song’s loneliness as well. As Leithauser is searching for Angel’s voice with his own, Angel captures your goosebumps with “Don’t trust the moonbeams, moonbeams are off the record / Don’t count your heartbeats, your heart wont beat forever”. As corny as those lines sound, her appearance offers one of the best female vocal performances I have heard in years. Leithauser tries to wrap up the album with those very same lyrics, but Angel takes the stage once again with her repetitive glow of “one day I’ll stop to listen” in the background along with violins that could be allied to VW’s “M79”.
Vampire Weekend fans will greatly appreciate what Rostam has accomplished with this piece of art. It contains familiar elements of old and new VW, and it makes you really commemorate his role in the studio. If Rostam hadn't left Vampire Weekend, could this have been the direction for VW’s fourth LP? We may never know the answer to that. But Rostam has given us a clue on what traits he’s bringing along with him into his solo adventure; and I, for one, am really excited for what this adventure beholds.
