''Who Is the Sender?'' is the fifth studio album by English singer, pianist and songwriter

Bill Fay Bill Fay (born William Fay; 1943) is an English singer-songwriter. His early recordings were released by Deram, but following the release of his second album in 1971, Fay was dropped by the label. His work enjoyed a growing cult status in the ...

, released by

Dead Oceans Dead Oceans is an American independent record label formed in 2007 and based in Bloomington, Indiana, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Austin, London, Paris, Amsterdam, and Berlin. Dead Oceans is part of Secretly Group, which also ...

in April 2015 by

. The second album track, "War Machine", was released in February 2015.Dead Oceans (19 february 2015), ''ALBUM ANNOUNCE // Bill Fay ‘Who Is the Sender’ Out 4/28, Watch Lyric Video And Hear “War Machine”''
/ref> The closing track, "I Hear You Calling (Studio Reunion)", was originally recorded for Fay's 1971 album '' Time of the Last Persecution''.

Reception

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, ''Who Is the Sender?'' received an average score of 76, based on 13 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

reviewer Thom Jurek said that the album contains "simple, profound songs" that "embrace the totality of earthly experience in the presence of the Divine". Dave Simpson of the '' Guardian'' called the album "beautifully hymnal" and said that "throughout, ay'scraft and enduring fascination with music itself is rather humbling."

Pitchfork Media ''Pitchfork'' (formerly ''Pitchfork Media'') is an American online music publication (currently owned by Condé Nast) that was launched in 1995 by writer Ryan Schreiber as an independent music blog. Schreiber started Pitchfork while working ...

s Grayson Currin said that it "moves ayfrom the category of a curiosity who returned after a four-decade absence to make a third great album to someone perhaps capable of doing so in perpetuity." In a review for the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', Ben Ratliff said that Fay "means well" but that the album was "a trudge, and strangely ponderous in its smallness."

Track listing

References

External links

Bill Fay, ''War Machine'', video
* Bill Fay albums 2015 albums Dead Oceans albums {{2010s-folk-album-stub