Album of the Week #2: The Tallest Man on Earth - The Wild Hunt

Love this album - and its predecessor, Shallow Grave (which I probably like a bit more). I became a bit obsessed with the two albums and listened to them repeatedly for around 4 months last year. I have seen some say that the poor recording/mixing quality ruins it for them, but I think this adds to the effect for me - it will really sound like old gods of nature animated, primal, also with all these sounds coming from the same instrument. The vocals and guitar being recorded on the same track adds to this kind of multivalent single voice feeling. Departure from this quality, alongside the later progression to more usual subjects, makes his later albums not work for me in the same way. The only downside is that his songs are all rather hard to play on the guitar, and involve a lot of re-tuning!!

I was not aware of the William Tyler connexion, though I was aware of him through Silver Jews (who are one of my all time favourites). I can hear it, I guess, rhythmically, on e.g. Going West - much "prettier" arrangements though, wouldn't say it has the effect described above.

I also just remembered, that his Tiny Desk performance is really good (and also to physically see the guitar techniques). However, it has this kind of funny moment, where (I think) Bob Boilen asks something like "how come you seem so at home here on the stage?" but he's actually quite nervous, so he's basically like "uhh, idk, lol"

Good afternoon folks.

I haven't heard this album before but I've heard of the artist's name. I enjoyed some of the guitar work, particularly on songs like The Wild Hunt, Troubles Will Be Gone, and King of Spain.

I really am not a lyrics person - I have a hard time understanding sung lyrics most of the time unless I'm reading along as the songs play, and I get the sense that there's a lot of clever words going on here that I'm just not picking up on my listen. I'm much more about the instrumentation, production, and overall vibe of a song musically or tonally. And I got a little bit of good vibes out of the few songs I mentioned above.

Basically if you could just play me the songs with the guitar and no words I'd be perfectly content - and I'm even all right with his voice as an instrument even if I'm not catching the words. The passion he sings with sometimes really compliments the music well. I enjoyed the guitar quite a bit. It has mostly a soft, lo-fi warmth it that I can certainly appreciate. The piano that comes in on Kids on the Run was also very nice, but that was probably my least favorite song vocals-wise.

Unfortunately my listening today has been on lower quality headphones and while I've been at work, so I'll give another listen at home on my nice headphones and see if I feel differently.

Thanks for the thread, hopefully everybody reading has a nice day.

Excellent choice! This album is a long-time fave.

I fully back everything @TallUntidyGothGF said - Shallow Grave is TMOE's other good album and his more recent work doesn't reach that high water mark. Full respect to anyone that can match the finger picking on this album, but yeah - not good for guitar beginners (speaking from experience).

First-time listeners will immediately note the grating vocals, but rest assured that's it's a taste that gets acquired hard and fast. If you're not vibing on the third listen or so, it's probably not for you.

The lyrics are Phish-tier... in the sense that they're mostly goofy nonsense sounds, but have some sorta consistent imagery or focus within each track. Not saying that as a knock on the album - they're sung well enough that the word choices don't really matter, and they're catchy, too.

The album has its highlights that could stand as singles, but it's best as a whole honestly. Good pacing and coherent theme. If I had to choose a standout, Kids on the Run would be my pick, since it's such a good exit track - a beautiful, melancholy change-up that signals the impending closeout.

Back in 2015, I saw TMOE live, but he was playing his new stuff and his opener, Lady Lamb, completely stole the show. She's a great act in her own right, but funny enough - suffers the exact same problem of being 10/10 as a solo vocalist + guitarist while not holding up at all with backing instrumentation. If you get the chance to see her or TMOE play an acoustic set, jump on it with no hesitation.

This is probably my first time listening to this album. There's always a chance I listened when it was released, I was certainly aware of it.
I did not like it. It's not bad, it just feels like the kind of album that I probably had to sit through various masturbatory conversations about. By people who won't stop talking about Bob Dylan.
This album sounds like a Bob Dylan tribute album, by a Wal-Mart house band. This may be the biggest failure of the album for me, there is so much talent in the guitar playing that the grating 2004-era-emo/Bob Dylan whine (and mid-60s style mixing) feel wrong.
7/10 - better than anything I make, will spend the rest of the day reflecting on it, listen to more TMOE, and acknowledge that I know nothing about music.

Absolutely love this album, just put it on for the first time in a while. Interesting to read about the mythological wild hunt while listening.