Hayden
Everything I Long For

THE REVIEW

Canadian Hayden Desser is one of the most interesting North American singer-songwriters for about a decade now. "Everything I Long For" - his excellent debut LP - dates back to 1996. Although it has never seen significant commercial success, Hayden richly deserves a discourse on his music. In "Everything I Long For," our hero's songwriting confidently and creatively treads the best paths of that American singer-songwriting which, in the past decade, was beautifully influenced by the remnants of grunge and the lo-fi Sebadoh school.

The classic folk repertoire - acoustic - is thus enriched with ruthless guitar assaults reminiscent of Nirvana and assorted dissonances, typical of the best Lou Barlow. The result is almost always excellent, as evidenced by successful gritty ballads like "Lounging" or "Hardly," or the distorted melodies of "Stem," "When This Is Over," or "You Were Loved," while the opening "Bad As They Seem" pays homage, both in the riff and the lyrics, to the immortal "Cowgirl In The Sand" by master Neil Young. Hayden is a simple musician, yet he knows how to enchant, especially thanks to his chilling voice, like a perfect teenager, with which he modulates falsettos à la Young and desperate vocalizations à la Vedder. One could define it as "cartoon-like singer-songwriter music," not unlike some things in Beck's repertoire at the time. Although Hayden does not possess the same musical vision as the author of "Loser," his intrinsic songwriting talent is certainly more refined.

The pathos and imagination emanating from Hayden are far removed from Cobain's teenage angst or Elliott Smith's disturbing scenarios: it is pure slackness, meaning stories of boredom, vital impulses, and solitude in the middle-class neighborhoods of North American metropolises, and in this sense, the most intelligent reference for the Canadian is the ultimate slacker, J Mascis. Certain minimalist vignettes like "We Don’t Mind" or "I'm To Blame" have precisely the typical languor of the Young Dinosaur. But Hayden shows he doesn't live solely by reflected light, especially in the epic "Skates": almost seven minutes of bored and desperate spleen, in a thrilling crescendo. The pinnacle of a record to preserve on the shelf: like the photo of an old friend now out of sight, but who occasionally resurfaces.