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Music critics are often sent the gamut of music. We hear everything from 15 year olds playing cheap guitars attempting to channel the teenage spirit of Dashboard Confessional to 60 year olds testing the water with their complex guitar chords and Celtic mood. Needless to say, it is few and far between when we are sent an album (that isn't on our own "best of" charts) that catches our collective ear, and beyond that, forces us to give it press. Hayley Taylor is one such artist. Echoing the vocal talents of Aimee Mann and Rosie Thomas, Taylor and her band of talented musicians take their place among some of the best in the business.
Not only is her vocal delivery a shocking display of "superior pipes," but her musical ability is based around melancholy chords and tight musicianship. Taylor and her band (made up of some top of the line session musicians) give a superb outing on this, their first album. Waking is a melancholy love sick disc filled with bittersweet tunes and a soulful voice. Compared to Aimee Mann, Liz Phair, and Rosie Thomas, Hayley Taylor cuts a sound just different enough to make it her own.
Waking is only an EP. Which, to the musical obsessed, means that there are about six fewer songs than there should be. However, though lacking in length, it makes up in quality. Waking chronicles some of the ups and downs of love. Songs like "Orange Tree" and "Falling" take us into the bittersweet reactions of a frustrated relationship. "Orange Tree" plays to the melancholy feel of the Rhodes piano. Draped in minor chords, it is a song that musically backs up the lyrics. "Falling" is a simple alt-country tune with the wonderful pedal steel guitar of Josh Grange.
"What I Never Said" is a waltzy ballad and happens to be my wife's favorite song on the album. Dedicated to the late actor, and Taylor's good friend, Jonathan Brandis, it is a song that talks about the pain of losing someone close to you. "All I've got left here now are pictures in my mind of the good times you left behind. And it's hard to think too much now. Cause I still don't believe you'd leave somehow."
The beautiful acoustic rocker "This Is It" reminds me of some of the finer points of Fiona Apple and the harmonies of the Beatles, taking the place as the most radio friendly tune on the album. "Rafael" could have been written by either Norah Jones or The Shins—take your pick. The stand up bass sound and the Rhodes piano echo Jones' "Sunrise" (off of the album Feels Like Home), but the chunky acoustic guitar takes on more of the sound of the ballads of The Shins. Closing the record with the delicate finger picking and strumming of "What Matters Most" is a stroke of genius. "I've seen people good be bad".
The enemy raise up his flag. And I’ve seen darkness in your eyes. What is right always outweighs the lies… And I know now what really matters most. The child waving who turned into a ghost, the boy who took the bus down the west coast for love.” Dripping with bitterness and hope, it closes the album on a comforting note, reminding the listener that although the state of the world is shot, "What really matters most is love."
Very rarely do my wife and I get an album that we both appreciate and listen to more than once. This is the glorious exception to the rule. Though Waking doesn’t officially come out until early 2006, it is one that deserves hype now, in the hopes that greater recognition and popularity occur when it is released.