"The New Make-Believe is a wonderful ensemble of ballads like a cherry tree filled with eyes or blossoms--each heavy with age and darkness. But there's always speed and drive and exhilaration to the singing. "A 1000 winking diamond eyes" in a swinging facade of monocles, scuttling crabs, Nietzsche, Cosplay and Indie Rock "streaming with fresh blood." The rider in these ballads is always dead. The rider in these ballads is always alive with "a pair of scissors/ poised over this globe."- RauanKlassnik, author of All the Schisms "A kaleidoscope of human voices unfolding and infolding with uneasy urgency. Like the afternoon sun on an object in a pawn shop, illuminating its dust, each of these voices feel serendipitously enveloped in dirt and light."- Mark Leidner, author of Under the Sea "I'll just say this. I grew up in the Midwest. I drank dozens of frozen colas from the gas station. I learned to play the ponies from my dad. And here I am, reading Judson Hamilton's The New Make Believe. But what do you care?" - Zachary Schomburg, author of Mammother