1.

The Kallikak Family
May 23rd 2007
(Tell-All Records, 2005)

It’s fitting and probably more than a little telling that the first review I posted for Forest Gospel was for May 23rd 2007 by The Kallikak Family. To this day I am still more enchanted by this series of recordings than any other that I have listened to. That’s a pretty hefty claim to place on the shoulders of such an obscure album, but it’s the truth. Andrew Peterson’s (aka The Kallikak Family) way of weaving together disparate instrumentation that is alternately industrial and pastoral just hits me in all the right ways. Additionally, the sequencing of the album is Perfection with a capital P. While May 23rd 2007 contains many pockets of vocal crooning, there are no lyrics to speak of. Yet, even with that being the case, the album’s musical quality does more to develop a narrative than anything I’ve ever heard from “literate” bands like The Decemberists. What The Kallikak Family has created here is simultaneously epic and cuttingly personal. For me, it is the most magnificent document of sound put to tape in this decade and I do not make that claim lightly.

-Thistle