★★★★★
So radio friendly it's almost obsequious, this is the one, the unabashed attempt at outing Canada's most emphatic popsmith. With more sentimentality, earnestness and saccharine balladeering than ever before (plus a strong and perplexing tendency toward '80s production styles), Lover/Fighter finds Mr. Workman stripping down and showing off his biggest private part: a closet love for the most romantic mainstream pop imaginable...
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-09
★★★★★
Meat, released earlier this year, was the yin to Milk's yang, both albums intended to complement and contradict each other. Where the guitar-heavy, bombastic Meat was all dirt under the fingernails, the sophisticated synth-pop of Milk has a kind of corny, jet-set pretension that would be annoying were it not intentionally amusing. Workman is a man of many hats, and this one tips in the direction of slick electro that's as fun as you want it to be...
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-02
★★★★★
Canadian rock singer-songwriter, Hawksley Workman has been there, done it, and grown out of his t-shirt. Having released eleven full length albums ? the first in 1998 when aged just twenty-three ? Workman is a prolific artist. He is also a skillful multi-instrumentalist and producer, doing the latter for many other artists. His offbeat, yet accessible sound is an achievement of his fecund creativity and praiseworthy work ethic...
- hangout.altsounds.com
2010-11-02
★★★★★
Those expecting the stadium-sized sound of Workman's Lover/Fighter are either going to be disappointed in the wonky country folk sound of his latest album, or thankful for this change in direction. The album feels like the period after a huge bender when you take it easy for a bit and chill out, which, biographically, is probably not too far from the truth...
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-02
★★★★★
No doubt about it, Hawksley Workman is one helluva talent. This guy writes all the songs, plays all the instruments and then delivers the whole package with panache. An artist who loves exploring many different musical avenues, Workman possesses an appealing rawness that saturates his work, as evidenced here on his 11th release...
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-02
★★★★★
You have to hand it to Toronto-based Hawksley Workman, he deserves all the accolades he receives. Not only is he a talented songsmith who understands the economy of lyrical phrasing, but he's a multi-instrumentalist who handles practically all the musical licks on this disc, be it strumming the strings, tinkling the ivories or beating the skins. And then, to top it off, there's the man's vocal delivery - Workman knows how to emote with husky conviction...
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-02
★★★★★
Good old Hawksley Workman is something of a Canadian institution by now. Not in an international sense, perhaps, like maple syrup or moose, but certainly on his own patch, like The Tragically Hip, Roots clothing or George Stromboulopoulos. Meat is the 11th disc in an increasingly prolific career, and Workman - or Ryan Corrigan to his mum - shows no signs of slowing: he released two LPs in 2008, and Meat is already augmented by the additional 12 tracks of a special edition, Meat/Milk...
- www.musicomh.com
2010-08-23
★★★★★
An album captioned "Hymns for a dying planet and a culture in decay" is never going to be a barrel of monkeys. When the composer is the hit-and-miss - though never predictable - Hawksley Workman, however, you can burn that assumption like a jostick.Retreating from the glam pop hijinx of his last album Lover/Fighter, Treeful Of Starling is every bit as folky, organic and traditional as its title suggests...
- www.musicomh.com
2010-08-23
★★★★★
Hawksley Workman has gotten a fair bit of acclaim over the last decade, including some Juno success. Even with his music getting into some TV soundtracks, Workman's albums aren't exactly getting endcap space and are usually best sought as imports. With this reissue of 1999's debut album For Him and the Girls, Workman (Ryan Corrigan) finally gets the record a proper US release, just in time to help push (or tag along with) new albums Meat and Milk...
- www.popmatters.com
2010-03-04
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