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Nov 3, 2022All 10 tracks are stacked with hooks, making it as good as their 2009 breakthrough album, Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. ... Mars’s sophisticated stream-of-consciousness lyrics operate in perfect synchronicity with the album’s sound. Melancholy themes of mortality are balanced by a giddy commitment to seizing the dance floor moment.
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Nov 4, 2022A quarter century after the French quartet Phoenix formed, it hardly seems likely that they’d make the most fresh-sounding album since the one that lit up the alt-rock charts in 2009, “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart” — but they’ve done it with “Alpha Zulu.” ... They’ve optimized and maximized their template in a way that seems effortless.
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Nov 4, 2022Phoenix's most immediate work since Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix and their most varied since United, Alpha Zulu does indeed range from A to Z, but the band are always in control and the results are frequently brilliant.
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Dec 13, 2022Alpha Zulu proves that while they may play with novel sounds and textures, Phoenix are in no danger of losing their melodic instincts and effortless indie-pop sensibilities.
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UncutNov 15, 2022The band continues to elevate themselves into one of the country's finest pop exports. [Jan 2023, p.23]
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Nov 9, 2022A fun record, but also one with real depth, ‘Alpha Zulu’ becomes an apt testament to the group’s continuing vitality.
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Nov 8, 2022Alpha Zulu is certainly a top-tier Phoenix record, bringing back that effortless French cool in a way that only they can.
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Nov 7, 2022‘Alpha Zulu’ is a fun record, on which the creators’ own enjoyment is audibly palpable.
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Nov 4, 2022Alpha Zulu confronts reality with a dreamy neon-lit elegance pulsing with playful vitality, it runs on its nerves but has its feet on the dance floor.
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Nov 4, 2022Much like 2017's Ti Amo, Alpha Zulu has a romantic warmth that transcends lyrics, which evade interpretation, often melting into the melody but occasionally snagging the ear with a beautiful turn of phrase.
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Nov 4, 2022Alpha Zulu is a robust addition to their already acclaimed catalogue.
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Nov 3, 2022This record carries some of Phoenix’s most intimate and approachable songs in years.
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Nov 3, 2022Alpha Zulu may not be the best Phoenix album, but it is another reminder of their artistic stability and growth, a genuine triumph for a band with seven albums in tow.
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Nov 10, 2022After a while, the songs on Alpha Zulu begin to mimic the experience of observing objects in a museum—you can admire all you want, but please don’t touch.
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Nov 3, 2022Both the title track, with its exclamation of “Woo-ha! Singing hallelujah!,” and “All Eyes on Me,” with its whip cracks and anxious synths, attempt to strike a more dastardly and vaguely dangerous vibe that they don’t really pull off. But for the most part, Alpha Zulu delivers the kind of deceptively simple, fleet pop for which Phoenix is best known.
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Nov 14, 2022This is a batch of super simple songs, with super simple melodies, and super simple lyricism. At this point in their career it seems like there isn’t much else to expect from them.
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Nov 3, 2022Alpha Zulu is everything a Phoenix album has been already: slick, silly, maximalist. ... They mine nostalgia for call-backs (Tonight); find comedy in impending doom (Alpha Zulu). But the boys are ageing and, separated initially by lockdown, an emotional core burned a hole in the centre of this new record instead of a six-minute space-bound instrumental.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 24 out of 31
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Mixed: 6 out of 31
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Negative: 1 out of 31
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Nov 7, 2022
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Nov 4, 2022
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Jun 23, 2023