Look out Generation X; only four years out of "your" decade, you're being sold to the happier, more hygienic Generation Y for a couple of lanyards, a beard trimmer, and a studded belt. Hours and hours of "We Love the '90s!" or "The '90s Rocked!" or whatever the program's called are in the can and ready for rerun consumption. The bad news: you can't stop it. The good news: you can still root for your favorite underdogs (for guilty pleasure TV watching, of course). My question is, will Hayden get his due? The Toronto, Ontario, songster let loose with Everything I Long For back in 1996, replete with bedroom-folk anthems and a deep barbaric yawp of a voice. The material was a cut above for a debut, and the record got some media attention for being "lo-fi". The cover art even featured a fuzzy old picture of a suburban father and son with matching push-mowers. Cha-ching!
Actually, one would hope Hayden is granted an exemption from any jumping-the-gun nostalgia retrospectives, though he warrants far more attention than many troubadours who've been saddled with the new-Dylan tag do. Over the course of four albums, Hayden has quietly refined and restrained both his songwriting and his baritone, resulting in the charming Elk Lake Serenade. As consistent and thematically unified as a concept album, without a definite concept, Serenade is a fulfilling collection of songs that can be enjoyed start to finish -- a rare feat for singer-songwriters in recent years. And it's not often you feel compelled to laud an album for its sequencing, but damn, this puppy flows.
"Wide Eyes" warms up the album with gentle piano chords and a few strings, while the straightforward lyrics are emotionally complicated, "I'm getting off at the next stop / Will you leave with me so that we can be seen / By my old love who's standing over there / She left me so stunned that I walk around scared". Ouch. But rather than being occasion for sad sack musing, it's the ultimate pick-up line. By the end of the song, the new actress has been invited out proper, "I think that she saw us / But I didn't look up to see / Wrap your arms around me / And let's go get something to eat". Ha! Hayden, you dawg. This is smart, engaging songwriting.
A buoyant rhythm section propels "Home by Saturday", with pedal steel winding in and out. It's a charming love letter from the road, like many others, but includes a startling admission midway through: "Last night in New York City / I met a girl almost as pretty / And if I had one more whiskey / Everything would have all just slipped away". I could go through song by song documenting the efficient little treasures of each, and will: the Dylanesque ode to his cat, "Woody", the funny/sad story of "Killbear", and the painfully direct account of lost loved ones in "This Summer". On the latter, he pushes his voice toward its upper limits, compounding the fragility of the song. Hayden's grown by leaps and bounds as a vocalist. His voices used to stretch like elastic in all directions over notes, but all across Elk Lake Serenade his delivery is unaffected and appropriate for each occasion.
The upbeat "rock" numbers on the album continue their progression from the noisier post-punk of years past to something slightly earthier. "Hollywood Ending" jerks around in cut time, with blasts of trumpet from Bryden Baird. "My Wife" is sung from the perspective of a husband who, settled in with a job and family, resents a traveling musician's glances at his wife. It's a departure in sound from the rest of the record, but the clarity of its recording and the ingenuity of detail link it to the other material. Hayden's sound on Elk Lake Serenade is a wonderful combination of modesty and confidence. He's carving out a unique body of work, and regardless of the level of attention it's met with, it will endure.
— 21 July 2004
