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Paste Magazine (August/September, 2005) |
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 "Deceptively complex effort from talented singer songwriter: Troubled Times is a lot of things it might not seem to be on first listen. Its songs are catchy, but not the kind you're likely to hum along with. Its appeal lies more in Waller's hypnotic Fender Rhodes and piano - layered with electronica embellishments - than its outright hooks."
Read the whole CD review here. |
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BUTT Magazine (Summer 2006) |
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 "I met Holcombe Waller through our mutual friend, dancer, singer and former BUTT pin-up Stephen Galloway, with whom he was writing and recording in Amsterdam. One night Holcombe came over and we sat singing folksy songs around an imaginary fireplace. I remember him doing something by Gillian Welch, and Dolly's Jolene, and his own beautiful songs about how the end of the world was looming...." -Gert Jonkers
Read the drunken and dazed interview here. |
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TimeOUT Chicago (July 14-21, 2005) |
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 "His neofolk is beguilingly gentle, but don't peg it as simple - from love to addiction to politics, Holcombe Waller covers a lot of disparate ground on his latest, "Troubled Times." He can play many personas... Waller as the love child of Marianne Faithfull and Toni Childs ("Don't You Love Nobody True")..."
Read the whole CD review here. |
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TimeOUT New York (June 2-8, 2005) |
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 "Waller's lovely, pared-down sound shows he's moving in a new direction after 2001's "Extravagant Gesture." The beauty of the stripped tunes is that they allow his willowy voice to float to the fore... That so much can be expressed using so little should force us to perk up our ears the next time Waller needs to get something off his chest."
Read the whole CD review here. |
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The Oregonian (Friday May 13th 2005) |
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 "The title track could have been delivered by a sleep-deprived Billy Corgan caught in a moment of acute social crisis. Vocals are surrounded by the twinkling notes of a heavily distorted keyboard and guitar. It's a gripping six minutes that gently slides from sedate to searing, from poetry to protest."
Read the whole CD review here. |
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Just Out (August 19, 2005) |
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 "By attempting to weave larger stories from his own experiences, Waller says, "I'm trying to crack the egg of consensus reality."
Read the article here. |
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Spin Magazine (June 2001) |
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 "...[he's] got the crazy-beautiful, four-octave voice of an androgynous seraph, but he's really a coffee-house troubadour from San Francisco and a classically trained pianist, a jazz saxophonist, and a visual artist. On his self-released CD ['Extravagant Gesture'], Waller renders songs of romantic holocaust with a nakedness that can't be taught and a vocal weirdness - all tweaky phrasing and curlicues - that can't be bought."
Read the full article here. |
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Willamette Week (June 1, 2005) |
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 "I realized Waller's personality is as hard to characterize as his music. He's one part intellectual (he studied physics, then switched majors to studio art), one part spiritual (he hangs with Radical fairies, practices yoga, participates in a monthly full-moon chant and is 95 percent vegan) and two parts political (he disses Condi Rice and post-Sept. 11 politics on his new album)."
Read the whole profile here. |
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San Francisco Chronicle (April 01) |
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 "San Francisco musician Holcombe Waller has produced a mysterious, elegant debut of progressive pop, all the more startling in its sophistication because he's just 25..." "[Waller's songs are] each arching and lovely, with infusions of trip-hop, R&B and electronica. Most impressive, though, is his voice - a three-octave, quavering wonder that won him top honors at an a cappella festival while he was at Yale. If his lyrics are understandably literate and sophisticated - ruminations on lost love and urban life - Waller's voice sells the package. At different moments, it sounds like different people: Jeff Buckley in the lower ranges, Seal in the middle and Tori Amos as he reaches for falsetto." "Quite stunning, as is this debut." Read the whole article here. |
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InRadio (March/April 2005 Edition) |
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| "Holcombe Waller's Troubled Times is part personal confession and part tirade of the current Bush administration. A highlight from the latter category? Waller actually manages to rhyme Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's name -- sort of. 'Condoleezz, baby pleezz...,' Waller croons on 'No Enemy,' 'You must reverse your stance and seal your fate/ To mend the broken right wing of the state.' "But even without the none-to-subtle pleas for a return to political rationality, the languid, almost non-committal quality of Waller's music feels like a challenge to the status quo in itself. The meandering, post-climactic quality of his tunes -- there is rarely a chord strummed all album -- seems to suggest, "lets knock it off with hyper-masculine 'stratergery,' America, and take a deep breath, and stop insisting everything we do be punctuated with a wailing guitar solo." Troubled Times is Waller's third album to date, all released on his own Napoleon Records label." WEBLINK |
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Frontiers News Magazine (May 2005) |
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| "A native of San Francisco, the scrappy 20-something has been wowing audiences in the Bay area for the past several years, releasing two well-received CDs on his own Napoleon label and prompting write-ups in mainstream magazines like Spin eager to evoke the Buckley comparison. It's not a stretch; Waller's music is equally raw and haunting- emotionally incisive and revealing laments about lost love, political unrest, and even the apocalypse. But Waller is also the heir apparent to the thrones of any number of well-regarded artists, including Damien Rice and Morrissey." | |
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Performing Songwriter (May 01) |
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| "The texts and subtexts of his characters are deliciously esoteric, constantly spending themselves in first-person confessions and questions." "His composition shares an affinity with Bjork in that it seems to come from some future place of greater sophistication and clean, mirror-like sound." ARTICLE JPEG |
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