April 16, 2010

Album Review: The Tallest Man On Earth - 'The Wild Hunt' (Dead Oceans)

A rough’n’ready energy fuelling this Swede's pastiche

6 / 10 You know that moment about 4am on the Sunday night of a festival when, strung out and mangled, you let yourself sink deliciously towards sleep? And then, into sweet relief cuts a flaccid bleat of “Hallelujaaaaah” an milksop, maudlin acoustic strums, and all you can think is ‘garden shears… garden shears and hot needles’? NME feels like that every time another witless whiner who sees no irony in using the words ‘reminiscent of Bob Dylan’ on their press release limps out of our postbag. And yet, for all that Swede Kristian Matsson, sometime singer with country-rockers Montezumas, nestles snugly into the Dylan-esque bracket, there’s a rough’n’ready energy fuelling his pastiche (seemingly the Swedish national genre). The lustiness of his Bob-cat yowl on warm and well-weathered numbers such as ‘King Of Spain’ makes ‘The Wild Hunt’ a refreshingly clean listen, like a fruit and water fast after weeks of binging on glo-fi and mathcore and frou-frou-step and whatever the fuck else. Ambitious? No. Delicious? Yes.

Emily Mackay

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