★★★★★
Release Date: June 11th, 2012 I have a lot of stories about how I got into certain bands, but I really don't have a long anecdote for how I got into Swedish folk band The Tallest Man On Earth. Basically, I was in a local Best Buy store last week, and saw this record at the front of one of the CD aisles, and was really curious about it, because I had heard of this band for so long, but never listened to them...
- absolutepunk.net
2013-02-07
★★★★★
How much more growth can we expect from earth's tallest man, aka Sweden's Kristian Matsson? Despite owing a hefty debt to Dylan, The Tallest Man on Earth hit his stride with a confident debut (Shallow Grave) and followed it up with an even-better second album (The Wild Hunt). There's No Leaving Now lives up to its title, a steadfast, bedding-down of roots that is unlikely to lure in many new listeners but will be lapped up by fans already converted to his craft...
- www.beat.com.au
2012-10-15
★★★★★
Is there any more rightly despised genre of music than singer/songwriter? For most listeners, the very mention of the genre brings to mind some awful hours spent trapped in a college coffee shop, trying to stomach the "great new singer" a significant other is obsessed with. Too often, the genre is populated by earnest musicians who lack a good voice, good lyrics, interesting instrumentation, or some combination of the three. Above all, singer/songwriters are...well, they're usually boring...
- www.undertheradarmag.com
2012-08-09
★★★★★
Any write-up of Swedish singer-songwriter Kristian Matsson, aka The Tallest Man on Earth, inevitably makes the Bob Dylan comparison. The parallels are there, what with the loose, acoustic fingerpicking, the scraggly voice, and the Greenwich Village vibe all present as hallmarks of Matsson's sound. However, Dylan appraisals are pointless and derivative unless the songs are there and can stand on their own...
- www.glidemagazine.com
2012-06-28
★★★★★
Saddled with the obligatory Dylan comparisons bestowed on anyone with a guitar and a tangential lyrical style, the Tallest Man on Earth releases his third album, There's No Leaving Now, without doing much to evade that association. But the Swedish singer-songwriter has more in common with Bon Iver, a companion in the gentle muddling of country, blues, and folk, and with whom he shared a formative 2008 tour...
- www.slantmagazine.com
2012-06-21
★★★★★
On "1904", the early single from the Tallest Man on Earth's third LP, There's No Leaving Now, Kristian Matsson's grit-flecked tenor warbles on about a mysterious event that "shook the Earth in 1904." What could the event be? Here are a few likely candidates. On January 16, 1904, the first major bodybuilding competition in the U.S. was held at Madison Square Garden. On May 21st, FIFA was founded. James Joyce met Nora Barnacle on June 10th. And, of course, C.A...
- www.popmatters.com
2012-06-14
★★★★★
After a total of four highly acclaimed albums and EPs, it might be expected that the Tallest Man On Earth (aka Kristian Matsson) might be feeling the need to expand his sound beyond simply his voice and acoustic guitar. But then again, why mess with a good thing? There's No Leaving Now is another sweetly concise collection of ten songs by the eloquent Swede, whose nationality remains brilliantly masked by a Midwestern twang. And it's that voice that continues to be Matsson's best tool...
- exclaim.ca
2012-06-14
★★★★★
Kristian Matsson deals largely in the abstract, but for a concrete idea of what There's No Leaving Now sounds like, imagine Bob Dylan getting whiplash from a taste of Scandinavian air. A Dylan disciple since in utero, the Swedish-born Matsson's songs reimagine Dust Bowl blues through a lo-fi lens. They also project coldness rather than intimacy, the floods of reverb taking on bizarrely inhuman shapes...
- www.pastemagazine.com
2012-06-14
★★★★★
Kristian Matsson (aka The Tallest Man on Earth) creeps out from underneath his forebears' shadows on his third album, There's No Leaving Now. The Swedish singer-songwriter's voice was downright stentorian on 2008's Shallow Grave and 2010's The Wild Hunt. The latter's electrified companion EP, Sometimes the Blues Is Just a Passing Bird, serves as a jumping off point for Matsson's current full-length. Per usual, each track's lyrics are pulled from the emotional jetsam of a life steeped in nature...
- filtermagazine.com
2012-06-14
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