- Record Label: United Interests
- Release Date: Mar 4, 2008
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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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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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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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
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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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Under The RadarElliott's softly vulnerable voice gives everything a modest approachability. [Spring 2008, p.87]
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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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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.
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.