Music Review: Christopher David Hanson, ‘The Bewilderness’
The northern Minnesota artist’s new album reflects his earned wisdom and musical experience, delivering profound truths with disarming honesty.
Christopher David Hanson’s The Bewilderness album artwork.
Every once in a while you get a message or note from a good friend and when you read it, you get a feeling of being seen, of being known. You get the feeling you’re receiving wisdom that’s hard-won—knowledge that has been paid for by lived experience.
Christopher David Hanson’s new album is that type of message. His performance and musical skill are honed by years of playing seemingly every venue in northern Minnesota. After more than a decade of performing with his rock outfit The Christopher David Hanson Band, Hanson has paid his musical dues and returned from the road with The Bewilderness, which came out July 2, 2026.
Recorded live off the floor, this album is wisdom. It is a portrait of the artist in this moment, where he has reached a point of reflection after all of his time spent creating, all of those nights performing. When Hanson sings, “I’m not sure how many days I’ve been alive / but I might start counting tonight,” the listener hears the long years behind that lyric. It’s indicative of the rest of the album—brutal and wild honesty. This record is a reckoning.
At a recent performance, Hanson spoke about the idea of “emotional math”—the idea of calculating the time you might have together with someone. He used this idea as a way to introduce his song “Might Start Counting Tonight,” from the new album. The “emotional math” in this song harkens to keeping track of days sober, to counting how many days left to be with a loved one. It explores the idea of living for the future vs. for the moment.
Listening to Hanson perform recently at the 2026 Lutsong Music Festival in Lutsen, MN, I could hear the decade-plus of touring with his rock band in his voice. There’s a joy that comes from doing what you love—making your way on your own terms. This joy comes through in his performance. There’s a polish that hard miles and a life lived performing and writing music will provide. You can hear both in spades when you hear Christopher David Hanson sing. He comes to the moment with an open-hearted honesty that instantly beckons you into his musical offering.
Hanson recorded this album with his son Cameron Elijah Erickson at Rich Mattson’s Sparta Sound studio in northern Minnesota, and the nine tracks sparkle like light on lakewater, enhanced by the ambient sounds built into the album.
The Bewilderness is structured with connective tissue between tracks, so that it flows from a standard song to the sounds of nature and of everyday life. One such song is “Love is a Garden.” The song arises from the easy burble of conversation and ring of a bell on a door of some local diner. The sounds of silverware against plates and continued quiet chatter help the listener experience what it’s like to pour out your life’s work in lyrics like “Love is a garden of crazy things / some have teeth, some have wings” to a room full of people who may or may not be listening all that close.
The track “Glint” opens with the sound of water in motion, and soon a gentle and easy guitar riff begins to duet with it. The guitar sounds as liquid, smooth, and ethereal as the water itself. There are sounds of car tires on gravel. Footsteps are heard walking to a door handle that you hear opening after the gentle rattle of a keyring, and one is taken into a scene of a musician coming home after a long day of travel and performing, coming home to one last song before fully succumbing to sleep. For the listener, it plays like a short story—a snapshot of a musician’s life spent enjoying days of solitude between days of traveling from show to show.
There’s a visceral frankness in Hanson’s songwriting, a “take me as I am because it took me a while and a lot of miles to get here” kind of feel. There’s also a grounded peace to this album. It’s a peace that many seek, and it’s offered so easily, so freely that one cannot help but be taken with it.
Hanson’s songwriting has always been outstanding. He’s a storyteller, revealing truths of a life lived “up north.” This album is that priceless note from a friend. It will knock you back with its profound honesty. The Bewilderness is an essential and important work, a touchstone that will ground you in what really matters in our turbulent times.
The Bewilderness Album Credits
Cameron Elijah Erickson, drums and vocals
Taylor Shykes, bass guitar and vocals
Keaton Will, piano and organs
Recorded at Rich Mattson’s studio Sparta Sound in Gilbert, Minnesota over three days.
Every song was recorded live off the floor.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Doyle Turner. Photo credit: no_aesthetic_stills.
Doyle Turner loves words. Whether it is shaping syllables into songs, poems, early morning journals, handwritten thank yous, lists, or album reviews, he is in a deep and abiding relationship with his college-ruled paper, Uniball Signo 207 .7mm pens, and mostly his keyboard. A good day is spent taking pictures, mailing things, making the words convey the precise meaning, driving, and singing.
