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Hot Press

Athlete's third effort Beyond The Neighbourhood goes some way to restoring their initial well-deserved kudos.

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Filter

Beyond the Neighborhood is somewhere in between, melding studio tweakery with the kind of sweeping melodies that never seem to go out of fashion.

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NOW Magazine

Beyond The Neighbourhood isn't Athlete's triumph, but with far more rock moments, spacey sounds and well-placed hooks, as on the driving anthem Hurricane and the dreamy Airport Disco, they've redeemed themselves a little.

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PopMatters

There aren't too many instances of musical weakness on the record, though a few tracks are mediocre in comparison with the album's most winning moments.

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All Music Guide

The album is mostly about emotion and expressing emotion, and finding the right driving piano hooks and reverbing guitar chords to enhance such feelings. All of which means that Beyond the Neighbourhood is not particularly extraordinary.

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Dot Music

The self-produced Beyond The Neighbourhood balances its meat and veg indie with enough electronic textures and hip hop beats to (sort of) catch the ear.

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Sputnikmusic

It sounds like the work of a band who are simply trying to get their feelings off their chest, rather than one trying to sell records.

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The Guardian

As you listen to Beyond the Neighbourhood, you find yourself spending an awful lot of time asking yourself whether you're feeling anything yet.

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Drowned In Sound

Again Athlete have purported a musical equivalent to a blank stare. It is there, it may intend to disperse meaning, but in the end it does nothing much, if anything at all. Blah, indeed.

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Uncut

Their third album is sprinkled with sensitive instrumental textures and plaintive tinkling noises, but their music remains utterly devoid of personality, not least because of Joel Potts' vapid vocals, while not even the best efforts of Gil Grissom and his eager CSIs could unearth a sniff of a decent tune. [Oct 2007, p.83]

Q Magazine

The result is a too quiet, curiously unfinished-sounding album with barely a moment to remember, let alone cherish. [Oct 2007, p.96]

Under The Radar

As talented as these guys are, they still can't write a song that stays with you. [Fall 2007, p.78]

Pitchfork

Beyond the Neighbourhood is the sonic equivalent of a beautiful coffin.

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Prefix Magazine

Mired in the generic neo-new-wave and self-consciously emotive yawn of contemporary fashion indie rock, Athlete's unimaginative music matches up nicely with the shallow lyrics.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 8.3 (out of 10) based on 17 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Dave s gave it a9:
Strange...i read really good reviews for this in the observer, mojo and time out. Why are these not included? great album.

Garry K. gave it a10:
Throughly enjoyed this album as all the songs are very down-to-earth and catchy. I was very disappointed when looking at the critics remarks as I firmly believe it is there best album out.

Fred R. gave it a6:
Sure, self-producing you're own album is going to have its downfalls, athlete are no longer producing a record to benefit their own sales. therefore, to state the obvious "it will sell less" however sales aren't everything in building a bands population. i think by self-producing an album they have set a standard for what is to come, and i think they've done well.

Akdo S. gave it a9:
Overall a great record. There are not immediate hit-singles or radio-friendly crap, but Athlete have managed to craft a very interesting and unpretentious collection of songs.

Paul C. gave it an8:
Useless reviews. This is a great album.

Lauri S. gave it a9:
I was quite shocked to see the scores for this album. I mean, some reviews even pointed out how the band chooses to express their feelings rather than to concentrate on creating an over-produced piece of mainstream crap - and then continued to say how that is a bad thing...

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Beyond The Neighbourhood

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