- Record Label: United Interests
- Release Date: Mar 4, 2008
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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Highlight and opener 'First Sight' consciously cops Postal Service pulse, but Elliott's emotion lies in the shading dodge that dances ever on the periphery of his poeticism.
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Alternative PressThe result is a beautiful collection of understated, orchestral roots rock that will enrapture both NPR and Pitchfork devotees. [Apr 2008, p.153]
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These United States sidesteps what could have easily been part of a superfluous boy-and-his-guitar genre by folding classic standards and varying its instrumentation and pop arrangements enough to create a warm and subtle structure, making for an altogether fresh and uniform interpretation of railroad folk introspection.
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The short songs too often find him serving up tasty, melodic morsels, only to snatch them away before you're fully satisfied.
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This, though, is the kind of nice, safe album a listener wants to like badly, but whose flaws ultimately leave one fumbling for the skip button on repeat listens.
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Under The RadarElliott's softly vulnerable voice gives everything a modest approachability. [Spring 2008, p.87]
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Picture, the more ambitious of the pair, simply sounds unfocused, overly concerned with effects and production--with moments and sounds--than with songs or overall shape.
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Picture is an album’s worth of universal feelings spoiled by his compulsion to present them as sordid or literary, to make them clever or allusive or needlessly alliterative
User score distribution:
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Positive: 5 out of 6
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Mixed: 0 out of 6
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Negative: 1 out of 6
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Aug 8, 2012
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PAApr 4, 2008This is the best album of the year so far.