A piano joins only on downbeats, and both play an ideal forum for Hayden's forlorn lyrics: 'Parked underground the night you left/ It took me an hour and a half/ To find my way back up above/ There's nothing up there without your love.' Hayden's progression is apparent from the opening chords of 'Street Car,' faint and filtered, with audible squeaks and shimmers of Hayden's fingers on the fretboard of his 12-string. Instead, the album is marked by frequent reliance on a simple falsetto. Accompanying his maturity is a newfound and uncanny sense of restraint that both binds the disc and renders his passion haunting and compelling. Youthful, idealistic romance has grown into love, hopefulness into doubt, and anger into distance. Hayden is still a man steeped in his own sensitivity, but he's changed a bit with age. The album casts Hayden as older, wiser and more reflective. Now, after a three-year hiatus, Hayden has returned with his third LP, Skyscraper National Park.

On its follow-up, The Closer I Get, Hayden had less to growl about, but just as much to long for, finding its high points with 'Two Doors' and 'Between Us to Hold.' The album, recorded on a four-track at his parent's house, was notable for its contrast of wistful tenderness and snarling anger, and of course, Hayden's striking baritone. Canadian Hayden Desser's sounds of solitude have captured the ears of sad-core indie-folk fans ever since his debut LP, Everything I Long For, was released in 1996.

Skyscraper 1996 review