[Washington Post]

Hayden manages to take a reliably mediocre type of music -- gloomy singer-songwriter fare -- and make it perfectly pleasurable. On Sunday at Iota the scruffy Canadian, backed by a four-piece band, played songs that were sad but not depressing, mellow but not boring, emotional but not sappy. He consistently worked in the realm of the melancholy but offered enough musical variation to separate himself from the sad-sack pack.

The key lesson to be learned from Hayden's performance is that one doesn't have to be alone with an acoustic guitar to play forlorn songs. Longing, love and lost love were the main lyrical themes throughout the evening, and Hayden proved to be a keen observer, if not a particularly enlightening one, of those issues. But his songs always had something to offer besides sad sentiments, whether it was weepy pedal steel in "Home by Saturday," a touch of harmonica on "Barely Friends," the triple-guitar grunge-light attack of "Dynamite Walls" or bouncy piano of "The Van Song."

Before launching into the Big Star-esque power pop ditty "Hollywood Ending," Hayden (full name Paul Hayden Desser) told the audience that he and his band mates heard the song over the piped-in radio station at a Philadelphia IHOP earlier that weekend and noted it was "pretty much the first time since 1995" he heard himself on the radio. That's when his song "Bad as They Seem" was a minor alt-rock hit and it was clear that many in the audience had been fans since then. He drew plenty of cheers when he closed the show with a solo acoustic version of the song; no accompaniment was needed to make it memorable.

-- David Malitz

www.washingtonpost.com

By Palmer Houchins

Before she became a Pulitzer-winning author, a twenty-something Eudora Welty took a job with the Works Project Administration as a photographer, traveling through the nation?s blemished backroads, chronicling the economic horror of the Great Depression through everyday images. In fact, a few years ago, a retrospective entitled Passionate Observer was launched to present this portion of Welty?s life.

Similarly, Canadian Paul Hayden Desser spent the '90s detailing bleak relationships and emotional overcompensation on a series of 4-track tapes and self-releases. In the cyber pre-dawn, no less, his music found an audience and even prospered. Now, several years and five albums later, Hayden has, in Welty terms, dropped the camera and picked up the pen. In Field & Town is a superb collection of vibrant?if sometimes surprisingly upbeat?songs that still resonate with what Hayden, a fellow passionate observer, does best: weave dizzyingly personal stories across everyday motifs. For example, ?Lonely Security Guard? is a pleasant piano ballad about a daytime watchman obsessed with something as mundane as origami.

Much of the record recalls the best from A Ghost is Born-era Wilco, where erratic, distorted guitars shriek over gentle piano melodies (?Did I Wake Up Beside You??) and prodding mid-tempo bass lines (?Where and When?), guided by a Neil Young-esque falsetto. It?s all the more impressive knowing that Hayden himself provides most of the instrumentation on the album, aside from some help from fellow Canadian child of the '90s, Howie Beck.

While In Field & Town has certain moments of cruise control, it?s of the breezy, carefree variety. This merely serves to add a certain texture to an indispensable work from a singer-songwriter who merits more attention than he receives.

"Another treat was opener Hayden, a seasoned Canadian folkie overjoyed at the chance to play at the Palace after 14 years' worth of passes through the Grog Shop. Despite technical difficulties (a loose mic stand and then a broken string that required him to finish up most of his solo dozen-song set on piano and electric), the gregarious songwriter breezed through song after melodious song with his harp and storyteller's heart as reliable backup. Between-song banter was useful but jovial, like when he introduced a "romantic love song about a bear attack." How can't you fall in love with that? Ending with a slinking version of Springsteen's "I'm on Fire" turned the two-thirds-full audience's rapt attention into enthusiastic applause."

- Dan Harkins Cleveland Free Times