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The debut by the Tallest Man on Earth (alias Kristian Mattson, a youthful Swede of average height) is one of those albums that is truly difficult to convince yourself was actually made when it was made, and isn't a dusty artifact of a bygone era. The obvious point of reference is early Dylan at his most earnestly folky -- a no-brainer, especially given Mattson's richly gritty, slightly pinched voice and densely imagistic lyrics -- but Shallow Grave also hearkens back further to the rural sources of Dylan's inspiration, evoking the spirits of pre-war hillbilly folkers and Mississippi country bluesmen, and often more vividly than Dylan himself. The unvarnished but essentially clean recording quality aside, there's little to suggest that these tunes weren't recorded in the American South in the early part of the last century, on the porch of some particularly contemplative backwoods poet.