In my experience as a music lover, I have learned that
sometimes I find albums and sometimes albums find me. Hayden’s fourth album, Elk-Lake
Serenade, found me just a few years after its 2004 release and I am very
glad that it did. At the time, I was going through a rough winter in a small
Vermont town and this collection of songs helped me keep going. The loose,
inviting, and natural tone of Elk-Lake Serenade creates a strong
contrast to Hayden’s intense, arresting, and cathartic 1996 debut, Everything
I Long For. Despite notable differences in overall attitude and vocal
delivery, these two albums share many of Hayden’s hallmark artistic strengths
including thought provoking varieties of subject matter, unusual song
structures, and inventive narrative perspectives. With Elk-Lake Serenade,
Hayden made good on the promise he showed early in his career by crafting a
mature, distinct, and adventurous album that contributes to and advances the
canon of great folk-rock albums. 
Elk-Lake Serenade opens with a trio of songs that set
the stage for the album’s well-paced mix of relatively brief songs of varying
tempo and energy that cover a range of tones from warm, funny, and earnest to
haunting, heart-breaking, and absurd. The album opens with “Wide Eyes,” a
stately, surprisingly formal ballad decorated with string flourishes and
anchored by a stern piano figure that serves as a reminder of Hayden’s knack
for minimalist storytelling. Just as the last notes of piano fade into silence,
“Home by Saturday” kicks into gear with a mid-tempo folk-rock arrangement,
beautifully offset by a great pedal steel guitar part, that grants the speaker
confidence as he reassures his lover that he won’t succumb to the lures of
going on tour while addressing with empathy the challenges they each face while
he is away. Beginning with a gentle, chiming guitar progression, “Woody”
expands quickly into a sweet little folk song dominated by acoustic guitar
strumming and harmonica. On the first listen, you might not catch that this
song is about Hayden’s pet cat because the bemused, resigned, yet loving spirit
of the song could just as easily apply to feelings toward a close friend or a
family member. Closer to the middle of the set, “Hollywood Ending” provides the
album its strongest uptempo number while taking the cake for oddball concepts
by illustrating what could be a fever dream or just a clever rumination on the
cultural obsession with mainstream entertainment. In the second half of the
album, two songs offer unique perspectives on domestic life that highlight
Hayden’s ability to eschew the platitudes common to many songs about life at
home. “Through The Rads” clips along a pretty good pace with subtle percussion
and textured instrumentation as the speaker describes the unease, conflict, and
apathy he feels hearing his neighbors fight through the radiators of the house
they share. “My Wife” features a driving tempo that balances nicely with the
speaker’s defiant, protective, and scathing rebuke to an old friend visiting
town who would benefit greatly from moving on and growing up. Both of these
songs demonstrate Hayden’s brevity and concision as a writer that is consistent
throughout the album. Hayden makes his point, moves on, and ensures that no
song wears out its welcome. Somehow, despite the tonal shifts and seemingly
abrupt changes in subject matter, the album’s center holds.
Hayden’s first album left a strong impression on a close
friend of mine in the late 1990’s and I enjoyed the songs I heard from it, but I
lost track of his music after that. When Elk-Lake Serenade found me, I
felt like I had run into an old friend I hadn’t seen in years. In many ways,
the differences between Hayden’s first and fourth albums bear the marks of his
respective ages when he made each of them. Everything I Long For sounds
like a smart, emotionally complex twenty-five year old working through, among
other things, being an angry young man in much the same way that Elk-Lake
Serenade sounds like a smart, contemplative person in his early-thirties
taking a moment to reflect on the bizarre, beautiful, and confounding world
around him. Elk-Lake Serenade found me in a lonely town during a harsh
winter while I was working through a very challenging time in my life, but
listening to these songs made those cold nights pass a little more easily.
Listening to this album feels like sharing an evening with a good friend you
haven’t seen for a while. The conversation rambles into directions you may have
never predicted, but the stories are great and it all reminds you of why you
have been friends for so long. I may have been short on friends where I was
living when this album found me, but listening to it, then and now, reminds me
of the tremendous value of both lasting friendship and wonderful music.
- John
Parsell
No comments:
Post a Comment