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  • Record Label:
  • Release Date:
Alive To Every Smile Image
Metascore
73

Generally favorable reviews - based on 9 Critic Reviews What's this?

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  • Summary: The fourth album from Bob Wratten under the Trembling Blue Stars name features yet another new lineup (although Annemari Davies does return for a couple of tracks).
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 9
  2. Negative: 0 out of 9
  1. While the music behind the lyrics doesn't exactly bristle with innovation, it's the best blend of acoustic and electronic instruments I've heard.
  2. Alternative Press
    80
    Wratten's finest post-Field Mice LP. [Dec 2001, p.98]
  3. If Alive to Every Smile doesn’t indicate Wratten is ready to move on thematically, it does show him evolving musically.
  4. Mojo
    70
    Listening to Bob Wratten is as necessary as a good cry. [Jan 2002, p.91]
  5. Uncut
    70
    Occasionally tentative songs and wonky arrangements mar them here. [Dec 2001, p.117]
  6. No matter the players, Alive to Every Smile is so patently a Bob Wratten album that, honestly, it sounds a little tired.
  7. Alive to Every Smile finds TBS swanning through a set of soft-pop numbers giddy with the misty misery of melancholy and coated with the softest frostings of studio icing-sugar.

See all 9 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 2
  3. Negative: 0 out of 2
  1. Sharon
    Nov 17, 2003
    10
    One of my favourite albums ever. Because of Alive To Every Smile, i have bought practically everything ever recorded by Bob Wratten. Excellent!!
  2. FrankB
    Jun 12, 2005
    10
    Brilliant. Sorrowful. Genius. Crushing. If Annemari Davies and Robert Wratten got back together for for more album, the world would be a Brilliant. Sorrowful. Genius. Crushing. If Annemari Davies and Robert Wratten got back together for for more album, the world would be a better place. Collapse