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Oct 5, 2018While the title track's big-hearted buildup channels the crew's establishing alt-pop buoyancy, new ideas stagger the 11 tracks. Monolithic "MetaGoth" and smoky ballad "Walking With a Killer" work through internal frustrations, eloquently tracking out a new era for the Breeders.
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Mar 2, 2018They took their sweet time, but that Breeders line-up is back, and has just nonchalantly knocked it out of the park.
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Mar 5, 2018The whole album is awash with reminders of not just how good The Breeders were, but how good The Breeders still are.
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Mar 2, 2018The Breeders have released the rock album of the year so far.
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Mar 1, 2018As its title suggests All Nerve is never a passive listen, it shifts you, touches a nerve, and leaves a timely mark.
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UncutFeb 27, 2018As vital as any of their previous four LPs. ... All Nerve's highlights are myriad and frequent. [Apr 2018, p.24]
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Mar 5, 2018The first new Breeders album in a decade, sounds--predictably, gloriously--like The Breeders.
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Mar 2, 2018On the whole, All Nerve is a strong, clear-eyed return for Dayton, Ohio’s ’90s alt-rock icons.
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Classic Rock MagazineJun 8, 2018Loneliness has rarely felt so uplifting. [Jun 2018, p.92]
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The WireApr 5, 2018A return to form. ... If anything this album is neither nervous nor holding its nerve, but powerful, solid, the work of a group who know what it is they do and how best to play to their strengths. [Apr 2018, p.64]
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Mar 20, 2018The Breeders’ there/not there qualities are such that unacquainted listeners will imagine what the band sounds like and they’d be right. Expedient and necessary, All Nerve is what we need now, next week, in 2023.
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Mar 8, 2018Not everything on All Nerve works. But then, perfection was never the aim for Breeders; instead, they’ve provided something vital, visceral, completely modern. In never once looking back they’ve re-captured the incessant energy that drove ‘Last Splash’, and given us something to take its place.
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Mar 2, 2018On the fifth Breeders album, the songs are all cinematic movement--hiding, escaping, screaming in the meadow, running for the exit.
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Mar 2, 2018All Nerve lives up to its name: the Breeders' one-of-a-kind toughness and vulnerability are the heart of their music, and that it's still beating strong is cause for celebration.
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Mar 1, 2018While The Breeders may not be reclaiming their youth on their latest effort, they’re not trying to: they approach All Nerve with the sensibility of a band that embraces how they’ve grown since their early punk days.
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Mar 1, 2018Music that is rich and deep and repays repeated listening. All the Breeders’ trademarks are here: the guitar lines that sit at unexpected angles to the chords, the shifts from light to dark, the curious sense of humour.
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Feb 28, 2018The Breeders have never sounded so determined to make a great record, and with All Nerve their efforts have paid off.
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Q MagazineFeb 27, 2018All Nerve is less the sound of a band trying to revisit the vitality of its youth, than a collection of musicians who don't appear to have ever lost it. [Apr 2018, p.110]
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MojoFeb 27, 2018Mimicking the band's whole existence, it flickers between light and shade, its clouds fast-moving, sunshine blotted out before it breaks through. [Apr 2018, p.88]
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Feb 27, 2018All Nerve won’t please anybody looking for the reckless abandon of old, but surely nobody who ever loved this band will be in that frame of mind. Instead, they’ll be ushering these old favourites in from the cold with warmth and empathy. This records sounds like a quiet defeat; really, it’s a triumphant cacophony.
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Feb 27, 2018All Nerve shrugs off any burden of a ‘come-back’ and becomes a truly rare thing: a wild, visionary, timeless rock album.
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Mar 2, 2018All Nerve finds The Breeders sounding more ecstatic and less restrained than anytime since Last Splash originally soaked the alt-rock scene.
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Mar 2, 2018More often than not, All Nerve is a satisfying listen because it lets the Breeders dig into their reasons for being drawn back into each other’s orbit--including the left-of-center hooks, the withering poetics, and the shared prickliness toward meeting outside expectations.
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Apr 18, 2018All Nerve is not in the same league as Last Splash, but it is an exhibition of a band with alarmingly strong musical chemistry making relevant music--and enjoying doing so--a quarter of a century on from their most notable landmark.
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Mar 14, 2018All Nerve is still a solid enough and welcome addition to The Breeders’ still slender yet always evolving canon.
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Mar 2, 2018Caveats aside, All Nerve is a fresh reminder that Kim Deal is still a fount of inspiration and should keep it going, be it with The Breeders or otherwise.
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Mar 1, 2018All Nerve remains stuck firmly in a box of the band's own making, both to their benefit (this is most definitely version of the Breeders fans know and love) and detriment (a couple songs are kind of boring).
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Feb 28, 2018Though there are highlights--including the winsome title track and the jumpy "Wait in the Car"--Deal's songwriting isn't quite as sticky as it used to be, with simpler melodies and fewer turns of phrase that pop like the twisted bumper-sticker slogans she once threw out.
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Feb 27, 2018All Nerve may suffer by lazy comparison not only to golden age Pixies or The Breeders' own '90s gems but it's a twisted, swirling record of gorgeous harmony set against catapulting rhythms and just the right balance of body-horror lyricism that stands firmly on its' own.
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Mar 2, 2018While it may flag a bit in its latter moments though, All Nerve still has moments where the magic of this particular, iconic incarnation of The Breeders feels recaptured.
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Mar 2, 2018The title track and the genuinely brilliant ‘MetaGoth’ Stripped to the bone and not so much sung as intoned by Josephine Wiggs, this is one of the creepiest yet compelling compositions The Breeders have ever put their name to. From there on in, the album goes through a variety of fits and starts before descending into anticlimax.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 25 out of 31
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Mixed: 2 out of 31
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Negative: 4 out of 31
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Mar 22, 2018
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Nov 24, 2019Kim Deal showcases her talent on The Breeders 5th studio album showing that even in her 50’s she’s still a force to be reckoned with.
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Mar 17, 2018