''Dark Bird Is Home'' is the fourth LP by The Tallest Man on Earth. It was released on CD, digital and vinyl on May 12, 2015 through the label Dead Oceans. The album is the first in his discography to feature a full band playing on almost every track.

Background

The songs of the album were recorded in various countries, studios, and barns, and are said to "carry a weather-worn quality, some dirt and some grit." BJ Burton announced via his Instagram page that production on the album had begun in July 2014 and concluded in September 2014. The album is said to be Matsson's most personal and direct piece of work, inspired by the death of a close family member and by the divorce from his wife, singer-songwriter Amanda Bergman. A trailer for the album was released on February 10, 2015, with Matsson proclaiming that "this is not the end, this is fine".

Critical reception

''Dark Bird Is Home'' received positive reviews from most music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 75, based on 21 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews".

Commercial performance

The album debuted in the United States at No. 1 on Folk Albums, No. 8 on Top Rock Albums, and No. 67 on ''Billboard'' 200, with 8,000 sold in its first week.

Track listing

Personnel

Kristian Matsson Kristian Matsson (born 30 April 1983) is a Swedish singer-songwriter who performs under the stage name The Tallest Man on Earth. Matsson grew up in Leksand, and began his solo career in 2006, having previously been the lead singer of the indie ...

–

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

, bass guitar,

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitches ...

drums A drum kit (also called a drum set, trap set, or simply drums) is a collection of drums, cymbals, and other Percussion instrument, auxiliary percussion instruments set up to be played by one person. The player (drummer) typically holds a pair o ...

acoustic guitar An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...

, electric guitar,

harmonica The harmonica, also known as a French harp or mouth organ, is a free reed wind instrument used worldwide in many musical genres, notably in blues, American folk music, classical music, jazz, country, and rock. The many types of harmonica inclu ...

, alto horn, omnichord,

pedal steel guitar The pedal steel guitar is a Console steel guitar, console-type of steel guitar with pedals and knee levers that change the pitch of certain strings to enable playing more varied and complex music than any previous steel guitar design. Like all s ...

, percussion, piano,

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

, tape machine, tom-tom drum, vocals, backup vocals * Oskar Bond – piano * BJ Burton – engineer, mixing,

producer Producer or producers may refer to: Occupations *Producer (agriculture), a farm operator *A stakeholder of economic production *Film producer, supervises the making of films **Executive producer, contributes to a film's budget and usually does not ...

* C.J. Camerieri – french horn, trumpet * Bird Coulter – piano * Dan Huiting – bass guitar * Mike Lewis – bass guitar, piano,

soprano saxophone The soprano saxophone is a higher-register variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument invented in the 1840s. The soprano is the third-smallest member of the saxophone family, which consists (from smallest to largest) of the soprillo, sop ...

, saxophone,

* Huntley Miller – mastering * Niclas Nordin –

, percussion * Mike Noyce – electric guitar, viola, violin, vocals, backup vocals * Mats Winkvist – bass guitar * Cameron Wittig – photography

Charts

References

{{Authority control 2015 albums The Tallest Man on Earth albums Dead Oceans albums