It's been too long in coming, so here's a three-song, thirteen-minute update that puts the spotlight on Hayden.
Hayden's a packed-house star up here in the frosty Canadian wastes, and he can't be too fringe a figure in the American singer-songwriter arena, but his records still aren't mentioned in the sorts of places they should be. He's released five solid albums of brooding, mumbly music, and while his lyrics can be hit-and-miss, his melancholy sincerity is perfect for stormy Thursday afternoons, or as a relationship slowly comes apart. He lets little guitar sounds carry the pauses between words, lets the unsaid speak. And he rarely screeches. (Of course there's also the growly and raging "When This Is Over" which is whiney and abrasive, but in a Tom-Waits-as-teenage-angster kind of way.)
In chronological order, then:
Hayden - "You Are All I Have". My favourite Hayden song, recorded twice - an angrier, rawer version on Moving Careful, and again here on The Closer I Get. This is an exceedingly careful love song, as tentative as fingers brushing hair from a face. It's long and steadfastly simple, bold words over the a tickling, blossoming mandolin. Hayden takes such time letting the song fold open, letting it stretch and ripple and glow. Each time a line of the chorus is delivered, it's a pulse of something bigger, as Douglas Coupland wrote (about something else), "silver dollars, rubies, sugar candies." A man in front of a house at night, lit only by the dim porch light, his heart in his two hands. [buy]
Hayden - "Bass Song". From 2002's Skyscraper National Park. This one is a little more upbeat, at least in a musical sense. Live, it's led by the ringing piano sound, but on record it's a strange, macabre little thing, guitars and drums pulling the quiet piano around, introducing it to the cold, wet, twisting strings. It's a silly story: Hayden in his home as burglars break in. "I couldn't hear them / with my headphones on / recording a song." But things go queer in the second half, as he "grab[s] [his] bass guitar by the neck," to be found "five days after [he] hit the ground." The same cautionary guitar tootles along, but in come the strings again, wheeling and winding, a slow-motion dance, dark violet figures on a candlelit floor. [buy]
Hayden - "Home by Saturday". Finally, the second track from Hayden's 2004 record, Elk Lake Serenade. Here he is in his slightly more rustic mode, with the kind of urban country-folk that landed him the soundtrack for 1996's Trees Lounge (with Steve Buscemi! As an unemployed drinker who's down on his luck!). There's an affectionate ring to Hayden's voice, in the long highways he imagines beyond the end of the song. A pedal steel underlines the man's not-quite-weariness, his not-quite-longing. As everything tramps casually forward, you can't help but feel it's holding back, ultimately much more divided than, say, Tom Waits's "Long Way Home". Listening to Hayden's lazy Ontario drawl, however, it's easy to understand why the girl would feel attached in the first place. [buy]
The bad side to Hayden is that since his comeback explosion a couple of years ago, I get the feeling he's coasting. Live, he's gone smug and lacklustre, carelessly tossing out songs, fully aware that the audience will lap it up regardless of effort. There are bits of Elk Lake Serenade where he's spinning his wheels, not putting the work into finishing the song. Hayden's written some excellent tracks that consist basically of a chorus: he sets a half-song spinning, gently reflecting light, and doesn't fill in the verses or give it an arc. But while this can sometimes succeed, other times it feels like a lazy habit or a lack of craft; the trick can wear, especially when overused. So while Greg Macpherson does astonishing things with his voice, his instrument, his words, Hayden's gone sloppy, resting too much on his cute-indie-boy laurels. Pull yourself together, dude: work a touch harder. I beg.