Hayden- In Field and Town

Hayden- In Field and Town

I was pretty jazzed for this album, however the release before this titled Elk Lake Serenade didn’t really do much for me. Found it a bit to slow.This album is pretty solid for many reasons worth mentioning. Firstly, it is a solid representation of what Hayden does on his other albums fused into one album. He also ads more to them by the means of the synthesizer. In Field and Town kind of throws the listener off a bit because it’s very much all over the place. It has the upbeat warmth that Sky Scrapper National Park has and also has the more Elk Lake slow tunes.Punchy opener titled “In Field and Town” that really reminds me of a Wintersleep off their latest album “Welcome to the Night Sky”, the song is called “Weighty Ghost”. I could see Hayden’s “In Field and Town” sounding really awful live, with an overbearing synthesizer riff overtaking his accompanying music. “In Field and Town” is a pretty bold opener because it is so upbeat, almost danceable. It’s good that it doesn’t foreshadow the rest of the album itself. My favourite song is called “The Van Song”, it’s cute, sad to say and that’s definitely why I like it. It’s musically put together so well! It has a pretty piano part that introduces the tune, it’s a simple pattern that backs up the entire song, it kind of reappears as the main theme every once in a while throughout the tune. It’s short, wrapping up at a 2:46... However in that brief amount of time Desser creates an incredible build up that most artists couldn’t conjure up in a song twice the length. I especially love the brass bit half way through, very nice.Sadly my least favourite song follows it directly, called “Worthy of Esteem”, which is somewhat ruins the sequence of the album itself. What ruined this song for me was his use of the synthesizer to outline this song, it’s somewhat droned out at some parts but not enough. Perhaps if he had used a repetitive piano riff it I would like it a lot more. I really like what he has done with “Did I Wake Up Beside You”. This song has a nice flow to it, through pulled vocals. It’s really well put together. His vocals work really well with the style of this song that kind of emphasizes the end of each vocal phrase. It’s different but it most definitely works.“Weight of the World” sounds most like something off Elk Lake. It’s Hayden and a guitar, a slow ballad. It’s minimal and come the second verse female vocals follow in, sounding a bunch like something off of Sarah Harmer’s album “I’m A Mountain”. This tunes only 1:41, and he quickly follows it with the significantly more upbeat song “Where and When”, which sounds like it could be a Jason Collett song something straight out of “Idols of Exile”.He ends the album with the song “Barely Friends” a bitter tune about regret and resentment. Following the true Hayden style of break up themed tunes. Hayden doesn’t consistently write love songs, but more songs about getting over something or someone. At the end of “Barely Friends” he says numerous times “The truth is, you weren’t the one”, really solid way to conclude an album.The artwork of this album makes it worth buying on its own. It comes in a paper case and companion lyric booklet that is in the form of a mini composition book with handwritten (legible) lyrics. I wish more artists would release quality album artwork.I think more people should listen to Hayden, because he makes ridiculously pretty music.8.7/10

Tunes to check out: “The Van Song” and “Weight of the World”

January 21, 2009