Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Oct 13, 2022With Callahan's romantic certainty comes rare writerly confidence: several tunes bask in this miraculous feeling. ... Outright classic. [Nov 2022, p.86]
-
Nov 18, 2022Along with delivering the abundance of colors, moods, and first-rate songwriting expected from a Bill Callahan album, Ytilaer is more exciting and engaging than his music has been in some time. This is how an expert singer/songwriter captures the tenor of the moment: with songs of timeless quality.
-
Oct 14, 2022This is a sumptuous and rewarding way of spending 60 minutes. YTILAER shows how he keeps raising the bar creatively, consolidating his place in the upper echelons of alternative rock in the process.
-
Oct 14, 2022YTILAER finds Callahan at his most personally enigmatic, taking inspiration from his own life and filtering those experiences through a prism of modern folktales. He offers us all the most enticing details but manages to keep it wonderfully vague at the same time, a treasure trove of musical obscurantism.
-
Oct 20, 2022Despite the record running slightly long and a few songs getting a bit repetitive: the lyrics and the arrangements are great, sure, but it’s the singer-songwriter’s ability to make us feel “it” which matters.
-
The WireNov 22, 2022Across the album woodwinds and brass establish the atmosphere, allowing Callahan to revisit some darker parts of himself with the safety of knowing that everything will be fine. [Dec 2022, p.64]
-
Nov 9, 2022While it’s certainly not as upbeat as 2020’s Gold Record, the directness cuts through in a way that 2019’s Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest didn’t. It’s an album that finds Callahan in great form.
-
Nov 3, 2022The album seems like a simple, straightforward work, yet every song carries fitting surprises within its construction. ... It’s the singer’s own version of reality, but it probably isn’t that far from whatever’s actually out there. If it’s a little bent and a little brighter at the same time, it somehow only feels truer.
-
Oct 24, 2022Despite occasional lyrical obtuseness, it’s a joy to hear Callahan back over thick, syrupy instrumentation, and there’s an abundance of riches here.
-
Oct 17, 2022Much of the playing here feels appealingly understated, given the sizable showing of backing vocalists (“6 or 7”) and lots of brass. This atmosphere of diffuse beauty is offset by livelier tracks – such as Natural Information or Bowevil (based on a traditional) – that double as thumping singalongs.
-
Oct 13, 2022Accompanying him for the hour that Reality lasts makes for an endlessly fascinating journey.
-
Oct 13, 2022YTILAER meanders through moods, from melancholic to tumultuous to mellow and easy. Often, the songs take time to reveal their true nature: Naked Souls begins as a gentle jazz ballad over piano, gradually building as other instruments join to become explosive. But elsewhere (Coyotes, Natural Information), it is simply joyful listening from the first beat.
-
Oct 13, 2022YTILAER picks at the fabric of the universe and if it doesn't always find the answers it wants, the expansive musical backdrop underlines its slightly ecstatic, questing spirit. [Nov 2022, p.34]
-
Oct 17, 2022You get the impression those songs aren’t in his wheelhouse anymore; that instead, Callahan’s purpose, in this vivid season of his career, is to divine more nuanced shades of happiness, try to act as a conduit to that kind of connection, and leave a gap for us to fill in. It suits him.
-
Oct 17, 2022At over an hour in length, the beauty of YTI⅃AƎЯ can drag its feet a little bit, but listeners will find no trouble in surrendering to the world Callahan lets them into.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 10 out of 19
-
Mixed: 9 out of 19
-
Negative: 0 out of 19
-
Oct 14, 2022Just amazing. The best album since Dream River. Naked Souls and Planets are masterpiece songs
-
May 5, 2023Da hör’ ich doch dieselbe Scheiße, zieh den Stecker, wo ist hier vorn und hinten? Ich fühle mich wie neugeboren.
-
Oct 17, 2022