Dark Bird Is Home
'Dark Bird Is Home' doesn’t feel like it came from one time, one place, or one tape machine. The songs and sounds were captured in various countries and studios, and they carry a weather-worn quality, some dirt and some grit. If you’re a fan of The Tallest Man On Earth, 'Dark Bird...' pays real tribute to the old records you fell for, and goes new places you’re going to love as well. If you’re new to The Man: holy shit! Many would be jealous of your position. Enjoy these songs, and know there are 40 or more other gems waiting on earlier albums and singles. Early in 'Dark Bird...', toward the end of the opening track, we hear other voices and sounds backing Kristian Matsson’s own. One of them, later credited in the liner notes with Angel Vocals, shows up several times throughout the record, adding new color to the familiar palette. And so the story grows and expands. That first song has horns and a piano, keyboards, synthesizers, and other modern noisemakers… and by track two you’ve got The Tallest Man on Earth as full-throttle rock and roll. While 'Dark Bird Is Home' is The Tallest Man at his most personal and direct, deeper and darker than ever at times, it’s also an album with strokes of whimsy and the scent of new beginnings — which feels fresh for The Tallest Man on Earth, and well timed. Reliably, the melodies and arrangements are sturdy and classic, like old cars & tightly wound clocks. The lyrics and their delivery are both comforting and alarming, like tall trees & wide hills. The other musicians and layers on this recording put a wide lens on familiar themes. Fear and darkness, sleep or lack of it, dreams in the dark and in the light. Moving, leaving, going. Distance and short stops, long straight lines, temporal places. More hopefully, a grateful nod to a traveling partner, a healing mind. Maybe a little forgiveness needed. Definitely some things to forget. And of course, that last song. The title track. If there is a little legend-building to be done here, let it be this scene a few of the album’s early-listeners can recount: Kristian gently warning them over their shoulder before track ten begins: “Watch out for this one.” You should expect the loudest and proudest sounds yet from The Tallest Man on Earth on album number four, but also the softest and the lowest. For the next few years, the Dark Bird tour will come to your city or a town nearby, and for the first time The Man is bringing a band to the stage with him.
Dark Bird Is Home is Kristian Matsson's most personal record as Tallest Man on Earth, but not because it's bare and raw, but because it's surreal and dreamlike. He flits between our reality and his own, a world of only dreamers and travelers, flickering lights of towns, shadows and ghosts, birds and trees.
On The Tallest Man On Earth’s 2010 Sometimes The Blues Is A Passing Bird EP, Swedish folk songwriter Kristian Matsson had his first major departure from his roots when on “The Dreamer” he replaced his acoustic guitar strums with the harsh, firm tones of an electric. The singer so often compared to Bob Dylan was…
Kristian Matsson's latest LP is at once his most insular and spacious. There’s a lot going on here.
When Kristian Matsson―better known as The Tallest Man on Earth―first touched down with his scrappy debut full-length in…
Early on, Kristian Matsson, the Swedish singer and songwriter better known as the Tallest Man on Earth, was content to be a simple contemporary folkie, strumming and singing all by his lonesome.
Fourth album in and Kristian Mattson continues to bring ever-sentimental anthems to his songbook, albeit with a voice that’s dropped a tone or two as of late.
Dark Bird is Home, the fourth full-length from the Tallest Man on Earth, has been described as the singer/songwriter's most personal and dir...
Especially for longtime fans of his, it is hard to ever meet the music of Kristian Matsson, aka The Tallest Man on Earth, with any displeasure.
The Swedish singer-songwriter is starting to recall Simple Minds in their stadium pomp, and has songs that would make Tom Petty take notice
The Tallest Man on Earth - Dark Bird Is Home review: Through a rainbow darkly.