Hayden
Elk-Lake Serenade

THE REVIEW

Dark, gloomy, minimal, ever-changing. Quiet implosions of the soul, silent fireworks sparkling in the heart. Fleeting glimmers, nocturnal flashes that illuminate from within, and quickly sink into darkness. Brines of notes that dissolve liquid, song after song. Emotional waves suspended between joy and delirium, apples of desire never bitten. Sinful apples infested with worms of malaise, snakes of boredom, and artificial paradises.

All this is Elk-Lake Serenade. And all this is Hayden Desser from Toronto, fractured, gloomy, and darkened voice, of a child baritone. Tender and tormented, sullen and capricious. Dark voice of a man who does not grow, dragging voice almost always on the verge of tears. Voice at times serene and deep as ultramarine blue.

An album suspended between irony and sarcasm. Between pain and tearing suffering. Between futility and disillusionment. An album uncertain between folk, indie rock, and neo-romanticism. Diseased stories that do not want to heal. Memories that frighten like the future. Classicism of strings and piano, like in a romantic lied, eyes squinting red, tears and grudges, in the opener "Wide Eyes"

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

A slide guitar that slithers malignantly in the splendid "Home by Saturday". Gentle and dark beating of an indie-rock heart, melancholic and fatalistic systole and diastole, soul inebriated in a solitary glass of Lagavulin or Oban malt.

Sadness and nostalgia of not being there.

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

Ever-changing irony, strong and piercing, tyrannical sarcasm, with oneself first and foremost, of "Hollywood Ending", a trumpet bursting luminescent in the most trivial yet profoundly carefree of refrains "La-la-la-la-laaa". Sinister vocal creaks, plucked guitar strings, soul about to collapse under the weight of memories in "This Summer". Echoes of country, harmonicas, and saloons, swinging doors of the heart in "Robbed Blind" or "Killbear". Plaster crumbling from the walls of the soul, drafts, currents of sadness, prayer mumbled in syllables sung at the edge of unintelligibility.

Maybe some of that was a bit too much
It's just that we won’t stay in touch
So come on baby, come over to me
We should fuck and them we'll see.

And only a few notes remain to burn like embers of love.