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America
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America Image
Metascore
82

Universal acclaim - based on 36 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
8.3

Universal acclaim- based on 24 Ratings

  • Summary: The latest album from Dan Deacon is his first on Domino and was inspired by his travels across America and as an American in Europe.

Top Track

True Thrush
Beast of my brain, everybody's the same With the beast's control, it will never turn gold, and that's just life Don't touch the flame, of the burning... See the rest of the song lyrics
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Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 35 out of 36
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 36
  3. Negative: 0 out of 36
  1. The A.V. Club
    Aug 28, 2012
    91
    America ultimately embraces splendor and nobility, even as it acknowledges personal and social anxiety.
  2. Magnet
    Aug 23, 2012
    90
    America is both a progression and a departure for Deacon: an album rife with danceable party music, but also a deeply political gesture. [No.90, p.56]
    All this publication's reviews
  3. Beats Per Minute
    Aug 28, 2012
    84
    America is an album in two halves, once again separate but together, a side of individual tracks and a four-song suite that inform each other even as they generate tension by nature of their disparity.
  4. Mojo
    Aug 17, 2012
    80
    While traces of Deacon's former giddiness punctuate America, there's an ambitiously hefty, almost John Doe Passos-like engagement with the ambiguities of the Land of the Free. [Sep 2012, p.88]
    All this publication's reviews
  5. Filter
    Aug 27, 2012
    80
    The Dan Deacon machine returns from Bromst-land (relatively) leaner, (relatively) focused and (absolutely) teeming with sound.
  6. NOW Magazine
    Aug 23, 2012
    80
    Using hardly any words at all, Deacon conveys the freedom, triumph and catharsis that can come from a journey across ever-changing yet familiar terrain.
  7. Rolling Stone
    Aug 28, 2012
    50
    The most enjoyable bits here are the least grandiose.

See all 36 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 4
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 4
  3. Negative: 0 out of 4
  1. tmoo
    Aug 28, 2012
    10
    This is big big stuff. Really really big stuff. Go see his show if you can. The music will surround you and hold you and blow you sweet kissesThis is big big stuff. Really really big stuff. Go see his show if you can. The music will surround you and hold you and blow you sweet kisses of hallucinatory revelation.… Expand
  2. jimmyjames
    Sep 3, 2012
    10
    Epic, beautiful, intense and grand. For my money the best, most thoroughly consistent of any Dan Deacon album to date. The opening threeEpic, beautiful, intense and grand. For my money the best, most thoroughly consistent of any Dan Deacon album to date. The opening three songs are a super-charged, upbeat, intense explosion, which then burn long through the rest of the tracks in sine-waves of intensity, ebbing and flowing. Introspective but always optimistic, this music is high-octane fuel for the mind and spirit. Turn it up loud and soak it in.… Expand
  4. sarcasmagasm2
    Sep 6, 2012
    9
    I never thought I would enjoy a Dan Deacon album seeing as how little his previous two albums did for me, so i came into it with a lot aI never thought I would enjoy a Dan Deacon album seeing as how little his previous two albums did for me, so i came into it with a lot a pessimism and little expectation that I would enjoy it at all. I turn it on, and the first thing I hear is that Deacon-trademark electronic sound like a buzzsaw trying to cut in half an iron rebar, or a thousand nails trailing across chalkboard, sending chills up your spine that comes with auditory pain. Nearly destroying the entire album for me in the first few seconds. It's as if deacon is trying to filter-out the uninitiated in the first few seconds. However ... Once you get used to the hyper buzz in the first few seconds, the album open itself into this grand ambitious progressive, electronic, psychedelic, indie-pop masterpiece that will send a different kind of chill up your back; the chills of pure joy as you get swept up in the joyous, self-reflective, optimistic grandiosity of it all.… Expand
  5. ChuangTzu
    Jul 8, 2014
    9
    The best and most accessible of his albums so far.
    It is a grand and ambitious piece of work that has to be listened in its entirety.
    It is    The best and most accessible of his albums so far.
    It is a grand and ambitious piece of work that has to be listened in its entirety.
    It is the perfect soundtrack for a long journey on an endless superhighway, but could also be highly enjoyed in a relaxing scenario (or on bed) with some quality headphones.
    According to the famous critic Piero Scaruffi it is one of the best albums of 2012 and I definitely agree.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

70
#70 Best Album of 2012