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Logos is an admirably worn, carefully composed record detailing a kaleidoscope of sound.
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While his work with Deerhunter remains impressive, Cox allows himself the most freedom while writing as Atlas Sound, and on Logos his risks are all rewarded.
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While the slower, wandering songs certainly make the composition and mood of the record, it's the more upbeat tracks, never Cox's previous forte, that shine on this disc.
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Logos is still a predominantly insular affair and all the better for it, with his aching melodies and ethereal arrangements pushing open the doors to a remarkably vivid inner world.
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FilterThough he occasionally buries his vocals under distortion, Cox is undeniably the star of the show. [Fall 2009, p.106]
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Logos feels familiar and assuring, another affecting dispatch from a corner of indie music that is increasingly starting to seem like one Cox pretty much owns.
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These songs are nearly as wide-ranging and comprehensive as an actual atlas, but Cox keeps charting new territory.
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Like Animal Collective's best work, Logos manages to combine simple melodies with enough experimentalism to allow you to keep returning to the record with fresh ears, but not too much to reduce it to avant-garde mush.
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The album is intimate, tuneful, and exciting. You don't even have to know who Bradford Cox is to get a lot of enjoyment out of Logos, and that's saying something indeed.
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Logos is a gorgeous, hallucinatory and somewhat sickly outing.
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They’re some decisive stuff, yet tend to leave the listener strangely alleviated, especially the title track: it’s the perfectly weird, yet high-energy song to get anyone out of their bedroom. That is, when they return to listen to this album again, of course.
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Under The RadarAs the rest of the album testifies, Cox doesn't ned a helping hand in crafting undeniable pop--he's doing just fine on his own. [Fall 2009, p.56]
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Cox may have tagged Atlas Sound as just another side-project, but Logos is a clear indication that his solo creative output is just as richly rewarding as what came before.
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Mostly though, this ethereal mix of multi-layered and textured dream-pop is frothing with jangly and heavily reverbed guitars, amid shoegazing drones and electro-style beats, that displays Atlas Sound’s sense of adventure and pop experimentation while providing the listener with countless entertaining spins.
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The tracks feel quickly and easily produced but fucking delicious.
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Cox is evidently a songwriter and sound sculptor of incredible skill and though the inclusion of the two collaborations--both a little too in thrall to their guests perhaps--means Logos lacks the wholly immersive quality of its predecessor, there is little else to contest; truly, this is pop music at its most weird and wonderful.
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Logos opens a portal through which its artist tells us something about who he is, and though this is not everything, it is enough.
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MojoThe bona fide release is a triumph, there's an understated elegance about Logos, which dabbles in Kraut-and math-rock and slacker-styled electronica. [Nov 2009, p.91]
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Q MagazineCox's great virtue is that he wears his experimentation lightly; though meticulously orchestrated and teeming with digital feints, these songs feel wonderfully spacious and derive an easy-going charm from his hazy vocals and their one-take recording. [Jan 2010, p. 117]
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Only when he retreats to familiar gauzy gurgles (as on the formless opener 'The Light That Failed') does Logos lose focus. Hopefully, Cox will learn to love it here, outside his shell.
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Logos, while just the second solo album from the frontman for a band of marginal fame, represents the latest and greatest chapter in Cox’s ride to indie stardom.
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Logos doesn't displace Microcastle as Cox's masterwork to date. But it's an intriguing, often beautiful addition to a rapidly expanding body of work that has seemingly boundless potential.
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Though it cedes little of the hazy delivery that made Let the Blind… so compelling, Logos brims with a wide-eyed energy all its own, conveying a palpable sense of optimism that’s all too rare in Cox’s oeuvre.
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Alternative PressFortunately, the androgynous-voiced experimenter went back on threats of scrapping what is by far his most versatile collection. [Nov 2009, p.106]
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Cox's second solo disc as the Atlas Sound brilliantly channels spaced-out folk balladry through hazy chamber pop à la Panda Bear or Stereolab.
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UncutAnd though his long-running solo project has hitherto been a private sketchbook of laptop doodles, for this latest release Atlas Sound engages with the widerworld to great effect: the best two tracks are collaborations: the ambient bubblegum of "Walkabout" with Animal Collective's Panda Bear and the ectoplasmic Krautrock of "Quick Canal" with Laetitia from Stereolab. [Nov 2009, p. 81]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 34 out of 37
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Mixed: 1 out of 37
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Negative: 2 out of 37
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Jan 26, 2011
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Nov 3, 2010
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RobertP.Oct 21, 2009I've fallen hard for this one. It's better than Microcastle. Hard to believe, but I'm saying it.