PITCHFORK: "powerful and engaging...these are the finest songs of wall's career and he knows it"

NOISEY: "arresting...unpredictable...dark...desolate"

SPIN: "lo-fi treasure...art-folk stunner...marvel at wharfer's haunted, carved-out constructions...a no-frills, self-made passion project through and through...the singer's voice booms with a newfound confidence reminiscent of bill callahan"

INTERVIEW: "there's something particularly beautiful about wharfer...wall has created his own version of haunting, yet gorgeous folk music that is hard to ignore"

BUZZFEED: "one of the "24 reasons to love folk music in 2013...kyle wall’s growled, warbly voice immediately sets wharfer apart from the majority of DIY folk that’s popping up even in urban centers like brooklyn."

POPMATTERS: "the best kind of bittersweet...if jeff tweedy, glen hansard and sufjan stevens met tom waits at justin vernon’s wisconsin cabin, the result would be 'acadia'...a retreat, an intimate invitation to his mental musings, unhurried and lush in its puzzling prose, heightened by the best parts of folk and Americana."

THE WILD HONEY PIE: "original, heartwarming charm...increasingly enrapturing with every listen."

WONDERING SOUND: "loving, immaculately-executed tribute to country music’s lost heroes...like a cowboy's lullaby." (on 'broken land: songs of the flatlanders')

PIGEONS & PLANES: "kyle wall’s voice carries a muted despair, a warbly resignation that belies a streak of independence that runs through his music"

WE LISTEN FOR YOU: "with every subtle artistic choice, wall is simply defining himself as a songwriter with the intelligence to back up his raw talent"

IMPOSE: "a talented folk mind...channeling folk sounds of cat stevens and cass mccombs"

FOLKADELPHIA: "othing about his approach is phoned-in...the raw quality allows wall’s songwriting gifts to come to the forefront"

THE DELI: "like leonard cohen and early johnny cash meets phosphorescent"

BEATS PER MINUTE: "spectral beauty...feel[s] deeply informed of [a] long line of country and folk music"

“Drunk Behind The Wheel”

The state’s on fire, every town’s burned out.
It feels like electricity’s gone white.
The needle’s come down and the whispers whisked us back
To the shores of Ireland, in the state you left us.

We’ve come a long way but this flight is wrong,
It’s holding us back from digging all night long,
On a street where hound dogs lead the way.
They couldn’t break us so we’re breaking out.
There’s a world out there that’s built on our doubt,
Is there still a goblin in our bed?

At the limits of the earth, I am a snake;
I’m born, I sleep, I’m risen every day,
And the years are long in Dublin after all,
So I dissolve in the riverbed at any hint of fall.

I’m the one who dwells in the water
I’m a scorpion, a careless daughter,
With the fishes fast asleep in bitter lakes.
My mummified eyes got nothing on you,
And it’s high time they took a clue
To drown out and let me sink into you.

When my eyes touch the water there, you’ll know
About the horrors rapping at my door.
And if I ever try to talk to you again,
The winds’ll grey, the light’ll climb and I’ll kindly let it in.

What if I said our pain was free
To float out back and swim through all the trees?
Would you try to send my love away?
I shed my soul in a bucket of tears
And erase the goodwill guarding me this year,
Awake, ashamed, and drunk behind the wheel.

“To Alabama”

A knife inside a stomach’s the way to lose
Aluminum or steel in the meaning of the news.
In all the movies, the madness slips over you.
It’s a horrible feeling to know it slipped away,
It’s a horrible feeling of violent decay.
So let’s take a trip to Alabama today.

You’ll let ‘em bite you in candelabra blue,
When you’re crawling to your old house, seeking something new.
In all the mirrors, you’ll imagine all the shadows breaking loose in the street
And terrorizing tourists trying to get away.
It’s a terrible feeling in this city today.
So let’s take a trip to Alabama babe.

“Melt Down”

In New York, a cryptic killing of time strewn in blue.
Calliope’s along the water as the Hudson splits in two.

Haven’t you had a vision of a white wolf coming to you,
With the snowflakes in the garden rising through the vines?

The sun, it escapes, and it’s never gonna see you melt down again.
A winter left out is a window into misery.
At the moment I drift away, I fly into a violent rage,
And I think about falling backwards in time.

Aren’t there clues in the attic by the tattered maps and violin?
The sound of flames emerging brightly as we do ourselves in.

Now I try to fly but my wings shatter, and the airwaves put me to sleep.
In the old days, my spirits added to a sense of mystery.

The sun, it escapes, and it’s never gonna see you melt down again.
A winter left out is a window into misery.
At the moment I drift away, I fly into a violent rage,
And I think about falling backwards in time.

Couldn’t you have made me better than the man I meant to be?
Shoot me down along the mountains if I beg for sympathy.

Are you there with our daughters, is there time for wine to flow?
Is our land beyond repair, is it time I came alive?

“Old Soul”

Ms. Gold, I was told of your raining gaze and winning streak,
A wife and a weather vane while your old boys all went insane.
They roar, you’re a fraud, but the skies won’t condemn or frighten you at all
The lord lets us testify, I can feel her coming 'round tonight
Oh, that great old soul on high.

The meteors towering before the southern set sets on its own.
Shaking off ashes and eight light years of traveling.
They roar, you’re a fraud, but the skies won’t condemn or frighten you at all
The lord lets us testify, I can feel her coming 'round tonight
Oh, that great old soul on high.

“Lumière”

On the rooftops I’ve been rattling
To the state I’ll be reborn in,
And if I could be traveling the fields,
I’d die to fly to Idaho.
But I’ll be back one day, I’ll be back one day.

I’ll always want to thank you
For bleeding out my roots.
And when I’m draining out the old days,
These songs will be the proof.

I can’t get high along the bridge
Unless I’m feeling drastic,
There’s good news along the bay,
The tornado’s running late.
But t’ll drift here one day, it’ll drift here one day.

I know I’ll want to find you
And ask to share your roof.
I’ll be dreaming of the old days,
And the songs we could’ve bloomed.

“I’ll Ride The Smoke”

Living at our old address,
Where the roosters ain’t woken up yet,
If you’d only see me now,
How you wouldn’t believe.

If I’d only seen the killers coming 'round the bend,
I’d build a stable of hate and excuses.
Burning down the Christmas tree
Ain’t it what used to be.

You know we got history,
Why did you ever want me?
Now that I got company,
You’re somebody’s blind ghost.

The rain washed out the highways again
And another world might take us,
So let’s drift away tonight,
I’ll ride the smoke.

“Deep Blue”

I took a chance on a day off and emptied my pockets,
Found an old dream of the life imagined,
Deep blue enough for you.
Call it inevitable, or call me a fool,
But the love that I have for that moment
Will lead me through blizzards and gloom,
A chance to return to the dry side of town,
And orchestrate our golden hours.

Old West Virginia was stuck in a song about time.
The time of year shaping a pattern,
See-through enough for you.
Now I’m still miserable, but calls make it through,
And the good men in town know to leave it
Alone when the records burn into

Ashes unburdened by ambient sounds.
They only last a golden hour.

I dreamed I met an angel on a Greyhound
We gazed upon the cold Atlantic,
Deep blue enough for two.
We crawled through a lifetime of imminent doom
Now we’re out in the sand and it’s perfect.
But these pipe dreams never come true.
So I return to the thought that I’ve drowned
And keep living through each golden hour.

“The Road Dissolved The View”

As kaleidoscopes scream sunken tunes,
The firemen and the angels shadow the room.
But the art never knew what the bees and gods do,
That the rapture’s already here.

In dreams of the water, we’re in hell,
And the red clouds rolling in know us too well.
Colors cut through an ocean of blues,
And the trumpets escape the sun.

As we ghosted through the desert, we both knew,
And the distance between our darknesses grew.
I thought the sunrise’d hide the highway, but the road dissolved the view.
Now I look for something new.

“Wilt (For Adam)”

When the cold air and the rambling girls collide,
Regrets and ashes strip me down, illuminating every bloated view.
Of course there’s evidence of the when the rain slid in my wooden shoes,
And a bunch of lonely heroes had us dancing on the moon.

My mind wanders off as fiddlers drown me out and alcoholic cobwebs sob,
It’s bold to be so literal and melt into a worldless string
Me all out babe, hangmen come at ten to cut me down
In a nightmare that has kept me up all night going on a year now.

As the whispers of electrical twilight align and line the ceiling’s fear
Of poor impressionable nights alone without you on the wing
A feeling of fall air comes in time to catch the next best thing
Has it been all that long since archers struck us down?

It lingers and it mellows me as if this whiff of history could fly
A century and hold on 'til our boys arrive and leave,
By tombstone scenery I’ve been losing steam, bad deeds have nearly buried me
But I’m winding up to live to see another rainy day.

Eden’s off, the reservation shook our old nerves to the end of drawing plans,
You think we’ve done enough, I think you woke me up
And a heart attack awaits those who’ll talk and talk and chalk it up to
Sympathy and astral lies and bluffs, I think I’ve heard enough.

If to grow is to approach the psalms as ghosts and cling to open arms,
Wait for me on Monday with a mask and watch your worries drown,
I’ll try to keep it brief beneath this front of ice and fear and fresh relief
My soul is glowing at the thought of getting sleep, I’d love to get some sleep.

When I realize that my words are not my own and every melody has flown
Among the bats and devils praying that I sing it like it is.

“The Hospital Choir”

With dystopia in my heart, I’m looking back
To the hospital choir, all they sang was black.
And for my last meal, the stories were endless
All at once it collapsed and for better or worse, I was new
And if blood wasn’t angling to strike young men down in their shoes
Maybe I’d have met you and carved out some honor.
They said I was caving in, but I wouldn’t die.
If I would only swim around the nick of time.

If fifty years pass and you’re still holding out for a full moon
Well darling god bless your patience and enmity
And if ladders and chutes don’t lead me to you, tell the truth
Will the Carolina blues strike somebody new?
Now I’m dreaming of those who’ve passed and a vision breaks loose,
About a boy who would fly to the depths of the sky and still lose.
If you’re ever caving in, remember that you’re fine.
Just go on and swim until the end of time.

“New Hyde Park”

I think of what I’d tell my son about the days of blood and hives,
As I sink under the trail again, it stinks of spiderwebs and gin.
I’ll never make my money back, but at least I’m on a train,
Away from love and blooming pain, away from architecture and the blame.

The truth is I’ve always been afraid, but we all stop sometime,
Somewhere along the county line, between the bars we’ve plagiarized,
Lifting lines and shots of rye that never stood the test of time.
Losing the plot in the twinkle of dawn, I get off and clear the streets of my seed.

Now I think of what I’ll tell myself when the nightmares turn to wine,
Somewhere along the city line, while the ghosts who drove you away
Whisper that they’re drifting back. But for now I’m on a train,
Awaiting life and blooming cattle, a way to go before I retire.