Review Summary: He's a fool now amongst us, a dreamer within dreaming of you.
If you were to ask me on any given day which record from The Tallest Man On Earth is my favorite, I’d have a hard time picking between Shallow Grave (the most influential), There’s No Leaving Now (the most emotional), I Love You. It’s a Fever Dream (the most sentimental) and The Wild Hunt (the most consistent). For today, at least, the nod goes to The Wild Hunt. For me, it has everything you could possibly want in an album from Kristian Matsson. It has its fair share of all-time classics (“The King of Spain,” “Love is All,” the title track) with underrated gems sprinkled throughout (“Burden of Tomorrow,” “A Lion’s Heart,” “Troubles Will Be Gone”). It expertly exhibits his masterful finger-picking style while also containing a few chord-driven offerings that are equally delightful. It has balladry, it has faster tempo numbers and it even offers the first glimpse into the future of where his sound and style would explore (the piano-laden closer, “Kids on the Run”). It’s earthy. It’s pastoral. It’s cascading in its own, folky ways. In short, it’s beautiful.
But what really makes this stand out from the pack, not only within The Tallest Man On Earth’s catalog, but within the pantheon of my personal favorites of the sublime art form we call music, is the levity that I feel when listening to this album. In a strange sense, there are moments on The Wild Hunt where I feel like everything in life will work itself out, no matter how dark that internal vision may seem at times. At times, like when I hear the opening chords of the title track play and then Matsson's voice comes in, it can feel like I have the answers to life figured out. Like everything will be ok. Like I will be ok. It’s an album that offers me a sense of peace and even if it’s fleeting, it’s a feeling that is increasingly harder to come by these days and for that I’ll be forever grateful The Wild Hunt (and The Tallest Man On Earth, for that matter) found its way into my life and has been with me for all these years.
