Elk-Lake Serenade

Before this entry I never heard of Hayden (as most of us never heard of Elk-Lake either). It is a pleasant surprise. The first track with its original chord progressions immediately shows this is not the default singer-songwriter. Several songs are highlights like "Home by Saturday", "Hollywood Ending" and "My Wife". The usage of a hidden track after "Looking Back to Me" is my only complaint. I'll certainly will check out the Skyscraper National Park album too.

This was very pleasant. Not sure why it clicked more than the billion other mellow indie folk albums on here, but it did and I really enjoyed it.

This is really nice. Reminds me a bit of Bon Iver at times, but I like this better. I especially like some of the more upbeat songs like Hollywood Ending and My Wife. 4 stars.

Folk / Folk rock sadboy does sadboy things. This is still an album whose overall architecture is comparatively more cohesive than any LP ever released by Eels. Yet I would lie if I said I thought the album was an absolute masterpiece. For one striking "Starting Over" -- 'striking' also because of the sentiment expressed in the lyrics -- or one delicate / heartbreaking cut such as "1939" or "Looking Back To Me", how many more meat-and-potatoes compositions for the genre do we have in the course of the sagging middle part of the LP? Well, at least one or two. Besides some of that guy's vocals rub me the wrong way on another couple of songs from this record, for reasons I can't put my fingers on as of now. Still giving a benevolent grading to this one to place it in my four-star gallery. I don't have a lot of time to spare for this record today for work reasons (today's an horrible day), so I want to be able to return to the album later on to finetune my assessment. Yet even if I end up finding the record better on subsequent listens, I don't think we have "essential album" material here. Many thanks to the user who suggested this, though. It's still a very interesting discovery... 3.5/5 for the purposes of this list dedicated to essential albums, rounded up to 4 8.5/10 for more general purposes (5 for the proficient musicianship and production values + 3.5 for the artistry) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 90 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 112 (including this one) Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 225 ---- Yo, Émile. Je t'ai enfin répondu. Regarde sous... *Demon Days*, de Gorillaz. 😉

Rating: 7/10 Best songs: Wide eyes, Home by saturday, Starting over

Quite nice

Credit where credit is due, this is a beautifully produced singer-songwriter album with some great guitar and vocals. At the end of the day, though, it’s just another guy and his guitar singing about life. We’ve had so many of these already on the list, and they all cover the same emotional territory in the same limited instrumental range. Not every album needs to be wholly original, but it’s tiring to hear and retread the same ground over and over with these things. The little hint of synth on ‘My Wife’ was fun and felt unique, yet disappeared as quickly as it came around – I’ll take any jolt of originality at this point to distinguish these kinds of albums from one another. The strong production values and performances get a 3, but spiritually and list-addition wise it deserves a 2.

Fraudulent cover alert: that's a western/BC mountain up there you can't fool me just dropping a peak into Ontario... ;P I know I listened to some Hayden years ago but either I've changed a lot or this wasn't it, because I feel like I'd have remembered being aggravated by these vocals. I legitimately like the gentle acoustic playing - actually does seem appropriate for a Northern Ontario cottage but.... man...the mumble-singing is overpowering. 4/10 2 stars. IMO: Belonged in the book? No.

This was fine. Nothing too special about it

I think this is the second one the list by this artist. I like this, I like this kind of music. Lyrically this is solid, though I think it falls short of his more luminary peers (Neil Young is a high bar, but not an unreasonable one, in this genre). His kind of mush-mouthed delivery doesn't help there.

Nice to listen to for the most part, but didn’t grab me on this first listen.

Mid-city

Nasal-driven folk that plays while you listen

This starts poorly, with an almost-skip for the first track. This leads instantly into the second track, which has that godawful "bwap bwap bwaaaa" of a steel guitar making country-ish noise, something which causes the same kind of physical revulsion in me that many people have to, say, the sound of fingernails on a blackboard, or perhaps Russell Brand talking. It almost went straight to the rubbish bin on the basis of that start, but I'm glad I was otherwise occupied and got to hear a touch more of it, because I do believe that many of the tracks were sufficiently un-countryish to be almost enjoyable. Sure, that awful noise came up from time to time, along with an almost equally unforgivable mouth organ, but I'll for sure give this a 3, noting as clearly as I can that it could easily have been a 4, possibly even a 5, if he sacked off the countryish and excessively folky numbers.

Good, but just lacking a wee bit of magic. Pleasant sounds for pottering about, but doesn't really grab my attention.

Not offensive but a bit run of the mill for me

I feel like my non-existent expectations were missed

Acoustic rock, alternative country, indie folk, folk rock. Muy cansino para mi gusto. Un 2.