{"id":2679,"date":"2012-06-26T11:50:36","date_gmt":"2012-06-26T15:50:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gadflyonline.com\/wpblog\/?p=2679"},"modified":"2012-07-15T20:07:15","modified_gmt":"2012-07-16T00:07:15","slug":"review-the-tallest-man-on-earths-theres-no-leaving-now-by-matt-conover","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/review-the-tallest-man-on-earths-theres-no-leaving-now-by-matt-conover\/","title":{"rendered":"REVIEW: The Tallest Man on Earth’s There’s No Leaving Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kristian Matsson first became well-known as the Tallest Man on Earth for the simple power of his performances. He seemed a pure troubadour of the venerable American folk tradition, performing alone on stage with just his voice and guitar. It\u2019s a mode that works when the performer exudes an air of prophetic mystery, when the music is beautiful and any apparent meaning gets tucked behind a shroud of symbolic imagery. \u201cI walk upon the river like it\u2019s easier than land,\u201d declared Matsson on his 2010 single, \u201cLove is All,\u201d and I believed him. Two years later,\u00a0There\u2019s No Leaving Now\u00a0<\/em>tests that formula.<\/p>\n

Critical to the mysterious allure of said folk style, popularized most notably by Bob Dylan, is the utter lack of explanation for what happens in the songs. The surreal images seem to pass straight from the subconscious of the singer to the ear of the listener, without so much of a clue from the rest of the lyrics as to what\u2019s being described or any emotional direction from the music. Lines like, \u201cThis is wind and walls and weathered leaves and tearing sails \/ minnows in your pockets when the rapid\u2019s on trails \/ this is not the future but I sense it\u2019s right up there\u201d would objectively have to be considered a poor attempt at comprehensible communication. Of course though, that\u2019s not why you\u2019re listening and that\u2019s not why he\u2019s singing. Matsson\u2019s brand of music seeks out a more direct emotional connection by bypassing a conventional exchange of information to seek out something that will take residence in the listener\u2019s head. \u201cI\u2019ll be your best when the silence comes,\u201d as Matsson sings later in the same song, \u201cWind and Walls.\u201d<\/p>\n

These images and lines linger because they are unexplained, and we pay attention in the moment, despite not really knowing what is being said, because it comes off as vital to the singer. With the naked \u201cman and his guitar\u201d aesthetic of his past work, Matsson relied on that perceived vitality to carry his songs, but on this album, he leans, ever so lightly, on other instruments to back his voice and guitar. \u201cRevelation Blues\u201d adds a second guitar and wind section that sounds as if it\u2019s been filtered through an AM radio, and it helps keep the track moving and interesting as Matsson ruminates on \u201croses dying too young.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fascinating that the very reflection that his music inspires seems to be what it comes out of. On that same track, the singer finds himself stuck in endless, entrapping self-reflection. He was young, beautiful and self-absorbed enough to not care when \u201cyour flood came down,\u201d though he calls himself a \u201ccoward\u201d in the first line. Much like Dylan, it\u2019s impossible to gauge from the lyrics what exactly he\u2019s dwelling on, but it passes on its restlessness to the listener by way of that very vagueness. Ultimately he surrenders himself to the chaos of his own mind and just accepts that there\u2019s little point in dwelling \u201cin the letters from the lovers in a land gone wrong,\u201d as they are \u201cexplanations always written late.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo Just Grow Away,\u201d the title of the album\u2019s first track, seems to be moral of the album, if you could say it had one. Noticeably, the solution is not to \u201cgo away,\u201d and Matsson chooses instead to give up his \u201cwish to drown and aimless flee, and simply accept the present state of things. Although he\u2019s not giving up and he retains his disdain for doing so (\u201csighing, that empty howl\u201d from \u201cOn Every Page\u201d), acceptance of conflict is simply not as exciting as the engagement of it.<\/p>\n

Perhaps this is why some the songs require a little bit of multi-track padding, and almost certainly why the album lags in its second half. It\u2019s not that the songs are of lesser quality (\u201cLittle Brother\u201d is a beautifully devastating portrait of a character lost to his own wildness), but they seem not so urgent, not as if they need to be heard. While it is certainly a gorgeous record, I wonder if\u00a0There\u2019s No Leaving Now<\/em>\u00a0will have the same soul-gripping longevity of its predecessors.<\/p>\n

This review was first published at the\u00a0perennially\u00a0decent music blog, Pretty Much Amazing<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kristian Matsson first became well-known as the Tallest Man on Earth for the simple power of his performances. He seemed a pure troubadour of the venerable American folk tradition, performing alone on stage with just his voice and guitar. It\u2019s a mode that works when the performer exudes an air of prophetic mystery, when the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[221,4,220],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2679"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2679"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3151,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2679\/revisions\/3151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gadflyonline.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}