Pitchfork

It's the McSweeney's factor: Earnestness is the new irony, funny the new not-funny, or whatever (not entirely sure how this works, actually). Though I resent being told not to use sarcasm, I'm beginning to realize that one of the reasons the Wooden Guitar is back is because of Eggers' movement. It is, Sun City Girls aside, totally impossible for a musician to smirk on a solo acoustic guitar ballad. Conversely, it's also more possible for him or her to jerk tears.

Not saying Blackshaw's gotten any out of me (or that Eggers wants to jerk tears, exactly), but I will come clean and call "Skylark Herald's Dawn" affecting: Blackshaw's broad sweeps on sad-minor strings, elegiac pacing, and penchant for the gradually sped-up crescendo and lilting come-down get what they need out of you, the same way as movie soundtracks. Although, what a 23-year-old kid needs with a funeral dirge, I don't know.