No Earthly Man
- Alasdair Roberts
- Band Name: Alasdair Roberts
- Record Label: Drag City
- Release Date: Mar 22, 2005
- Critic Score
- Most active
- Publication
- Most clicked
-
90A near-faultless record. [Apr 2005, p.97]
-
80While several have done it just as well before him, Alasdair Roberts has few peers when it comes to treating these rather cruel stories with such love and care.
-
These sparsely arranged folk songs are hauntingly pretty. [19 Mar 2005, p.59]
-
80No Earthly Man demonstrates that all the glitz and studio production techniques used in making many records aren't really necessary to craft a compelling document.
-
On the quietly electrifying No Earthly Man, Roberts takes on eight classic murder ballads from the British Isles with dizzying results.
-
80These songs are reminders of a time when death wasn't a distant bogeyman but a mundane reality of everyday life. Alasdair Roberts's versions are somewhat modernized, but utterly immediate.
-
70The core remains Roberts' discomfitingly pure way with diction. [May 2005, p.109]
-
70It's a truly haunting record populated by ghosts. [May 2005, p.116]
-
70A sombre, sorrowful collection.
-
Roberts sounds alienated, but not arrogant, like some of his labelmates often can. His vocal melodies lack warmth and pain, but I find No Earthly Man's blank stare profoundly appropriate.
-
The only perfect choice here was to make an album full of ballads. It could have been a violent reworking of age-old texts. Unfortunately, there’s not enough violence here to fully rend and flay, just enough to bruise.
-
40Lacks the dynamism and subtlety of Farewell Sorrow.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 2 out of 2
-
Mixed: 0 out of 2
-
Negative: 0 out of 2
-
WayneB9
-
adamk9Haunting, murderous and sometimes beautiful, this album remains still in my stereo and, try as i might, i cannot remove it. Incredible.