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Album Review

Darren Hayman
January Songs Belka

Article written by Ged M - Feb 21, 2012

In January 2011, Darren Hayman wrote a song a day for the month (and made a video, and kept a journal…). He’d like to work in a song factory, he says in the sleeve notes, which would put him on a par with the composers in the Brill Building, the songsmiths working for Motown, or even Lou Reed in his little staff-songwriter cubicle at Pickwick Records. All of them show that art doesn’t necessarily need a long gestation period, although not its offspring will be pretty enough to be exposed publicly.

Luckily, Darren hasn’t produced any complete munters. The 31 songs of January have some so-so moments, and some of them are Hayman-by-numbers, but there’s plenty of quality, novelty, and a surprisingly high hit rate.

A lot of the best songs are collaborative efforts. ‘Isle of Eigg’ has all the charm of a Hayman song with a folkier inflection (and gorgeous Caledonian lilt) added by Ballboy’s Gordon McIntyre and ‘Who Hung The Monkey’ is fun-time rock’n’roll with bad grammar, delivered with the Wave Pictures. Shh…’, with Litoral, is minimal but emotional pop, with a neat beat underscoring the gentle guitar and strings, while ‘Old Man Hands’, featuring Terry Edwards on trumpet, is a tender meditation on aging. Meanwhile Darren reckons that his effort with Harvey Williams, ‘I Can Keep A Secret’, is one of his best songs, just the sound of his voice backed by voices in chorus. Elsewhere, there are some typically good Hayman lines – “I had blood on my hands like a clumsy butcher” – and some surprising influences (the Pixies-like ‘Nothing At All’), but the best song of all is ‘I Know I Fucked Up’, sung by Elisabeth Morris. A romantic, confessional melodrama with eye-tearing lyrics (“you were the best friend I almost had”), it balances out its quota of curse words with one of Darren’s loveliest and most affecting melodies.

Statisticians have worked out that January contains the most depressing day of the year, but January Songs has no low points as Darren's work ethic proves that there's no conflct between art and industry.

Links:
http://www.hefnet.com