HUNTER HAYES - RED SKY
Hunter Hayes is best known for his country-pop love songs, ranging from the lighter-waving slow dance ‘Wanted’ to the upbeat folk-inspired TikTok hit ‘I Want Crazy - Encore’. His new album, Red Sky, shows a greater range than previous releases and gives a hint of a more serious, refined, Hunter Hayes.
The first track, ‘High Tide’ is everything an opening track should be. It builds patiently over the first minute of the song like the opening titles of a film before reaching a stadium-rock chorus with soaring vocals and distorted guitars, but with his country roots maintained by a subtle presence of banjos and a verse melody which is undeniably Hunter Hayes country-pop.
After the excitement of ‘High Tide’ comes the reflective ‘About a Boy.’ It’s an end-of-the-relationship hymn, reflecting on wrongs done by the boy in the song’s story, how he wishes his partner the best, and how his own ideas around masculinity negatively affected their relationship - lines such as “there’s a man out there who’ll show you he cares / ain’t afraid to admit when he’s wrong” and “real man knows how to say he’s sorry / I’m still learning every day,” coming as a surprise.
It falls a little short of the heights it could reach, the last two choruses hint at some form of escalation, whether a key change or a vocal crescendo, but it carbon copies previous choruses save for a technically enjoyable guitar solo - soured by what there could have been. But perhaps that’s a metaphor.
‘Normal’ is another song on the heartbreak end of the love-song scale, with the boy no longer the heart-breaker, instead playing the heartbroken. Save for the lyrics the song is reminiscent of previous Hunter Hayes slow dances, but focuses instead on how he should hate the person who broke his heart, and instead has forgiven them and awaits the moment when they’ll meet again. It’s a niche love-song to write, and it feels as though he was aware of that - as the song feels underdeveloped as it falls into the same trap as ‘About a Boy’ and is allowed to grow repetitive.
The first single of the album ‘Missing You’ is builds on the strong history of songs about lost-love and the change of seasons. ‘Missing You’ feels familiar from the outset in a very positive way. The song opens with the dialling of a payphone, the pressing of the numbers constructing the melody of the chorus, immediately casting your mind to making a phone call home in the midst of a road trip. This is supported in the first verse, which features the line “the closest to heaven was highway 27, I’ve never been lost like that.” It’s immensely evocative of a summer of falling in love during a road trip across the eastern USA and feels familiar from the outset in a cosy and positive way.
Following the steady build the pace drops again with ‘Lonely Loves Me’ - a stripped back song on heartbreak, built of nothing but layered vocals and a simple synthesiser pad and arpeggio. Lyrically and musically it’s got the ingredients needed to be a tear-jerker, but there’s a sense that Hayes won’t really let himself go in this song, and the restraint from giving full voice to the heartbreak leaves the song feeling flatter than it should.
An unexpected but far from negative change in tone comes from ‘If You Change Your Mind.’ A notable presence of strings, some heavily compressed drums, and a seductive offering of “if you change your mind” to the subject of the song about the fact they said they’d never want to get back together, or that the person they’re with is good, all bring to mind more R&B hits than country-pop, and it suits Hunter Hayes well.
The shift in genre is maintained for ‘Sober’ as an effects-heavy guitar and watery keys accompany Hayes singing about the wish for the subject of the song to “kiss me when you’re sober.”
Occasional moments in the song go into full early-2000s boy band call backs, such as when a minute and a half in Hayes sings “when you look at me like this I know” - accompanied by the drums, keys, and guitar rhythmically and melodically following his lead. The song grows naturally, as more backup vocals, guitar and piano lines, and funk-inspired fills are introduced.
‘Friend’ puts Hayes once again in the shoes of both the heartbreaker and the heartbroken, as he sings about the process of a relationship “from strangers to hello” to “you wrapped up in my shirt” and later “to knowing you could never love me at my darkest.”
This is another track of stripped-back instrumentation on Red Sky, as its sorrowful piano and Hunter Hayes voice taking lead on this track with little more than a few refrains of a choir, and some strings and the distant reverberations of some drums in the middle 8. Throughout the song the subject is asked to remain a friend, as Hayes offers “if I can’t have you / I want the closest thing.” It’s a bitter-sweet concept, and the polish of Hayes’ voice suits it as he remains front and centre throughout the track. The most traditional pop song of the album comes in at track 9 with ‘Feelings’ - a classic dancey reflection on how serious a relationship is or isn’t.
“You’ve been at my place for seven nights and seven days / looking pretty comfortable for someone who needs space,” it’s a familiar sensation for many, and Hayes captures the excitement of a young relationship in the plucky funk bassline and disco-esque synth bell line in the chorus, as well as the uncertainty that goes along with the early days of a relationship before communication is fluid.
Hayes allows himself to let loose with this song, and in the last chorus lets out some vocal runs as he plays with the support given by the strong rhythm present in ‘Feelings,’ which builds some momentum as the album moves forwards.
‘Wallflower’ is well within Hayes’ wheelhouse of country-pop, though with a measure of rock sensibility from a rhythm-driven chorus. Despite this, it comes out unremarkable. The chorus refrain of “There’s a reason I’m a wallflower” is catchy, carries the song, and functions well as the song comes to an end, repeating the “reason I’m a wall / reason I’m a wallflower” - making an attempt to get the hook into the ear of the listener, but doesn’t manage to anywhere near the extent of previous Hunter Hayes hits, or even some other tracks on Red Sky.
The most typically country track of the album so far, ‘Someone Will’ threatens the subject “if you don’t want to let me love you / baby someone will.” Featuring a catchy banjo riff and a strong hook, ‘Someone Will’ melds the classic Hunter Hayes country sound with the increasingly pop sensibilities he has been exercising throughout the rest of Red Sky.
The song is short and sweet, coming and going quickly before it wears any of it’s elements thin. Towards the end of the song Hayes plays with the space he’s given by the banjo riff in the chorus, creating a satisfying finale to the song after the quick build of questions and doubts that the song poses. The hit of the album (as of writing), ‘The One That Got Away’ has been out for almost two years, and shows a lot of what this album would feature in it’s structure.
As Hayes sings as the titular one that got away he reflects on what happened in a relationship and how things ended, “and all I ever wanted / was to love and to be loved / so what did I do to you? / So wrong, so wrong.” Despite this, rather than shape the song as a negative on what happened it moves towards empowerment, Hayes reassuring “I’m the one that got away.” The song has a wall of sound that builds over it’s short length, introducing and stripping back guitars, synthesizers and strings to emphasise the ebbs and flows of the track, very capably following the theme of reflection on the past and then gratitude for the present.
‘Could’ve Been You’ continues the strong pace of the latter half of Red Sky, as well as the gratitude for an opportunity for new beginnings. As a central arpeggiating guitar riff repeats the dangers of fast love are reflected on, beginning with the opening lyrics of “I said ‘I love you’ to a stranger / someone I didn’t know, I didn’t know / you got a thing for sippin’ danger / and you take it with you everywhere you go.” As the verse progresses it seems as though Hayes could be musing on love lost, but the embrace of a new life is affirmed as he sings “Now I gotta find somebody new / But I’m lucky ‘cause it could’ve been you.”
The whole track is a reminder to the listener that if it was meant to be, it would’ve been, and rather than rely on the familiar concept to carry the song makes use of some surprise elements, even employing a vocoder in the chorus.
Some confusion in tone seems to take hold in ‘Falling and Flying’ as a simple yet classic band lineup accompanies Hayes as he shares his feelings of betrayal, singing “I was a child / felt safe in your arms / then left in the wild.” The chorus reflects on the positives of this, sharing “it’s just me in the wind / learning to breath again / and the truth is I’m finding/ the difference ‘tween falling and flying.”
This classic ballad structure is interrupted by a somewhat jarring guitar riff, heavy in effects to an extent it’s more reminiscent of Muse than any of Hunter Hayes’ peers. The middle-8 goes in the opposite direction, as Hayes briefly sings accompanied only by sweeping strings and an acoustic guitar, before returning to the chorus.
The album ends on ‘Victory’ - which seems like a letter to the listener about his newfound openness he’s employed in the album, as he captures all of the feelings of the album over a building stomping and clapping, harmony, and percussion-filled eruption of joy befitting the title of the track. “I had my heart ripped out / and I’m finally healing / my pain has set me free / I’m finally finding me” is sung by Hayes and a crowd of voices in the chorus, an apt ending for the album - which is centered around embracing more complex, less twee, themes around love - and comes across as stronger for it.
A consistent issue in Red Sky, greater than any to do with the songs themselves, is a matter of pacing. Every time one track builds pace and excitement, or lulls the listener into introspection, the tone suddenly changes and forces you to adjust to the new mood, it’s not until the last half of the album that the pace is allowed to build more consistently to suit the overall theme of the album.
Nicholas Roberts
★★★☆☆