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  • Release Date:
Ambivalence Avenue Image
Metascore
78

Generally favorable reviews - based on 16 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
8.4

Universal acclaim- based on 14 Ratings

  • Summary: The second full-length album for Stephen Wilkinson is his first on Warp records.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 16
  2. Negative: 0 out of 16
  1. This new bag of tricks is implemented with due subtlety that bolsters the charming simplicity qualities, while filling the tracks out and, cautiously, adding some curves.
  2. While Ambivalence Avenue is an excellent album by any measure, Bibio deserves extra credit for venturing outside of his established comfort zone.
  3. Uncut
    80
    It helps that Wilkinson sings sweetly, too, distancing and layering his vocals for that dewy, lost-in-the-woods effect. [Aug 2009, p.87]
  4. Q Magazine
    80
    His remarkable Warp debut follows a series of effective "folktronica" albums on the US independent Mush. [Jul 2009, p.117]
  5. For his sense of structure and emotional give and take is acute, so that we move from loud to quiet, from slow to quite fast, from acoustic to electronic, with an ease that makes perfect sense.
  6. He’s named after his father’s best fishing fly, but the pastoral folk moments on Stephen Wilkinson’s fifth album of chummy electronica pale next to the glut of nostalgic yearning.
  7. Bibio’s tendency, across the album, to either smooth the edges of his creations into non-threatening abstraction or fail to zone in on his best ideas is frustrating.

See all 16 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. NachoC
    Jul 17, 2009
    9
    To be quite honest I did not know what to expect at first when I bought this album. Bibio is not only a fantastic electronic musician but his To be quite honest I did not know what to expect at first when I bought this album. Bibio is not only a fantastic electronic musician but his lyrics and guitar melodies carry you out throughout the tracks. Recommended. Collapse