Greetings! Spring is finally here, and the April 2 release of Hiss Golden Messenger’s Haw is right around the corner. In honor of that occasion, Paste Magazine is kindly streaming the album in its entirety from today, Monday, March 25, through next Monday, Monday, April 1. Listen here, and place your orders here. Pre-orders are shipping this week–PoB HQ resembles a landscape of cardboard mailers and boxes these days. Congrats to the 20 lucky folks who won free copies of HGM’s Bad Debt, Root Work, and Country Hai East Cotton!

Reviews have started to come in, and we’re pleased to report that the album is receiving some powerful accolades. MOJO calls HGM’s “invigorating take on gospel… sincere and moving.” Record Collector’s Max Bell finds Haw “no less exemplary than its predecessor… Sounding like it was recorded by a babbling river close to a magical forest, [it] gets the ooh and aah reaction of first contact with an eclipse, manag[ing] to sound bafflingly deep and simply affecting by turn.”

We’re particularly fond of the handwritten missive posted at Was Ist Das?, beautifully photographed on the snowy English soil. The reviewer praises M.C. Taylor as “an astoundingly talented singer-songwriter with a wonderfully soulful voice,” describing Haw as “one of those albums that hits you like a bullet of light… as vital, uplifting, and righteous as drinking beers in the sunshine.” Man, do we love that sentiment! And please excuse the salty language here, but when our fearless writer asks what makes HGM “so different than the singer-songwriters you see on TV and hear on the main radio stations,” the answer is brilliant and brutal: “He’s not a cunt. You can tell it in his voice. You can hear it in his music. He’s a decent guy. He has humility, humanity, and a shitload of talent.” Hear, hear!