Lucy Fitzgerald 
Tyler Ellis lets you in the door with “Hardwarestore”, his ninth album, and it plays out like catching up with an old friend over coffee. The Toronto songwriter has always worn two hats: he’s a working musician and a longtime music teacher, and that mix gives him a natural ease when talking about regular people and their regular lives. He keeps things stripped down: voice, acoustic guitar, and a light touch of backing instruments, built on folk, country, and blues roots. Nothing is dressed up here, and that’s the point. The plain arrangements leave room for the words to do the heavy lifting. The title track is about something small, heading to the store to copy a front door key so someone he loves can move in, but it turns into a song about building a whole life together. “On Everybody’s Mind” has a hushed, old-school folk feel, almost like a Nick Drake record, with guitar playing so close you’d swear you were sitting in the room. “Work Friends” is about the quiet way people lean on each other to get through a shift, and “Serendipitous” is about finding love in the last place you expected it.
Two songs dig deeper. “Union Song” has a small choir behind him singing about brotherhood and sisterhood, with the line “there are no others, there’s just us” sticking with you long after it ends. “Late in the Evening” sits on the other side of that coin, a quiet, honest song about drinking to numb hard feelings and the loneliness beneath them. “For Your Tears” does more with less, packing real empathy into three short verses in under two minutes. This is one of the most open, unguarded records Ellis has made, and he doesn’t hide behind clever wordplay when a plain, true sentence says it better.
Blue collar jobs, porch guitar sessions, small wins, big struggles, love found and love lost, Ellis writes about all of it like someone who’s actually lived it, not someone watching from the sidelines. Every song feels like its own chapter, which is exactly why this one is worth playing front to back instead of skipping around. Do yourself a favor and follow Tyler Ellis on his socials and streaming platforms so you don’t miss his next single, tour dates, or the stories behind these songs. And once you’ve spent some time with “Hardwarestore”, add the title track, along with “Union Song” and “Late in the Evening”, to your regular rotation. Records like this warm and this human don’t show up often, and Ellis deserves listeners who keep coming back for more.
Listening to songs so you don’t have to! Just kidding :D, you totally should. Music blogger by day, nurse by night
