3 December 2008 :: stirring up anger problems you never knew existed

:: Record Review

Hayden

Elk-Lake Serenade
(Badman; 2004)

Rating: 52%
Combined Rating: 74%

I remember the first time I heard Hayden. I was in broadcasting school working on some project in a studio. My friend stuck his head into the room, and, completely ignoring the on air light, told me that I should check out the CD he was holding. I put it in the player, and by the end of the first chorus of Everything I Long For’s “Bad As They Seem,” I laughed my ass off and asked him what the hell he was making me listen to.

“What do I do this for?/ I’ve got to get out some more/ Go down to the grocery store/ Meet someone I’ll adore/ Someone who’ll make me laugh/ Someone to be my better half/ Keep me warm under the sack/ Share with me my midnight snack” – from “Bad As They Seem”

Needless to say, I hated it at first, but I made copies of Everything I Long For, The Closer I Get, and Skyscraper National Park at the request of my friend, who told me that it would grow on me. I was skeptical, but I continued to listen to the albums in small doses. They were whiny and depressing. I normally couldn’t stand that shit, but within a few months I figured out why I kept Hayden on the frequent listening list.

Even if he used annoying rhyme schemes like the one in “Bad As They Seem,” and never seemed to stop complaining about his relationships and bad luck, he wasn’t fabricating his feelings, and there was an underlying appeal. It’s composed of pure, almost intrusively personal, unrefined emotion. In other words, you can’t get much more human than Hayden. He’s the kind of guy who listens before he talks, thinks before he acts, and doesn’t say anything that he doesn’t mean, but also doesn’t hold anything back. These are important qualities, but, as I will explain in the following paragraphs, it isn’t enough to make mediocre songs into good ones.

With Hayden, you can always expect new styles to emerge from album to album. There have been slight changes since he began his musical career with a badly tuned acoustic guitar and raspy voice in the mid-nineties. Those changes have never been enough to make or break an album, but they have kept things from totally stagnating. On Elk Lake Serenade, Hayden added piano, pedal steel, synthesizer, a five-piece string section, and horns to his usual vocals-guitar-bass-drums lineup. Unfortunately, that’s mostly over by the end of “Hollywood Ending.”

The album starts out with a slow and beautiful piano and violin duet. Hayden mumbles his lyrics as if he either can’t remember what they are, or doesn’t really want you to hear him singing over the meandering piano. I kind of wish I could figure out what he’s saying for the purpose of this review. I really wanted to talk this song up because unless you’re listening to Elk Lake Serenade by yourself in the middle of the night, using it as background music while you contemplate personal problems, or on a lonely drive through the countryside, the rest of the album is one big downhill stretch with only an occasional redeeming song.

The first instance of redemption is not too far away from “Wide Eyes.” It’s actually the next song on the track list, “Home By Saturday,” a riff-based song that uses progression to keep the song from being too redundant. The same mumbled lyrical technique is employed here, although it isn’t so incoherent as it is in “Wide Eyes.” If you’re familiar with Hayden, think any of the medium-paced songs from The Closer I get or Skyscraper National Park. If you’re not familiar, it’s stripped down guitar intensive folk music with a lot of minor chords and introspective lyrics.

The next worthwhile song is track three, “Woody.” Again, pretty standard Hayden stuff here, but nothing new. “This Summer” comes in. It’s not necessarily so much bad as it is depressing, and if you’re not in the mood for that, you’ll probably reach for the skip button. The more upbeat, “Hollywood Ending” is Elk Lake Serenade’s other strong track. It’s here where horns are included in the mix -- a Hayden first. The rest of the album drags on forever with songs similar to “This Summer” until you decide to find something else to listen to, or wait it out to find one more decent song, “Don’t Get Down.”

Hayden’s albums have always been slanted to the sad side, but Elk Lake Serenade is borderline ridiculous, to the listener without a desire for emotional assuagement. The lyrics and musicianship are of the quality to be expected from Hayden, but something’s a little. . . boring about Elk Lake Serenade. Mostly, it’s too long to pass as a good singer/songwriter’s album to people who, like myself, aren’t huge fans of the genre. It wears out its welcome long before its sixteen songs (including the bonus track) are over. There’s also not a lot of variation between most of the songs. They start to sound the same after a while, and Hayden’s style is too slow to successfully make anything of it. That is, anything other than an album to listen to on lonely nights. Joe Frankland :: 08 June 2004 |                

:: All content © CMG 2003-2008 | :: About | :: Staff | :: Contact | :: Advertise | :: Promos | :: Donate | :: Apply                                                     powered by Textpattern | hosted by (mt) Media Temple