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Sound of Water

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 14 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 5 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: Sub Pop
Release Date: 06 June 2000
Discs: 1 disc
Genre(s): Rock, Alternative, Dance
Summary
Also By This Artist: Finisterre Interlude Tales From Turnpike House
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Magnet
Saint Etienne's latest album is masterful: fanatically detailed, intelligent and swimming in lovely melodies and delicious electronic bleeps... easily one of the year's standout albums. [#46, p.90]
Entertainment Weekly
They've made a dreamy set suffused with synth bleeps and strings, nodding to Eno, Abba, and U.K. electro-soul peers Everything but the Girl.
Read Full Review >Spin
Every twinkling ambient moment is remarkably humane.
Sonicnet
Although Sound of Water, Saint Etienne's fifth album, may not be as overtly clever as 1991's Foxbase Alpha or as thematically consistent as 1998's Good Humor, it is as subtle as an Antonio Carlos Jobim tune and as mysteriously satisfying as a lazy summer night.
Read Full Review >Q Magazine
This is a quietly adventurous coming of age, as languorous and fuzzy around the edges as a summer afternoon.
Read Full Review >CDNow
There are few big drum samples or disco beats on Sound of Water; as its title suggests, it's far more fluid and sensuous than any music the group has made before.
Read Full Review >All Music Guide
There are moments of pop pleasure here, surrounded by spare, languid electronica sections, vaguely reminiscent of the High Llamas.
Read Full Review >Mojo
There's still a warm heart beating under all this newly-assembled machinery.
Read Full Review >MTV.com
But unlike the band's overbearing forays into trip-hop and dub before, a new level of soul and texture emerge from Saint Etienne's neo-modernist stylings.
Read Full Review >Pitchfork
The songs flow effortlessly along, and even the instrumental tracks are fully developed-- none suffer from the half-finished feel that made Places to Visit so dissatisfying.... As with past Saint Etienne albums, Sound of Water is ear-candy all the way through. Still, they've managed to add a layer of subtlety and novelty beneath the glossiness...
Read Full Review >New Musical Express
These ten tracks come with such an earnest passion for the timeless pop form that any snobbery is punctured with an arrow drawn straight from Cupid's quiver.
Read Full Review >Puncture
This recording finds Saint Etienne a slower, gentler band--not nearly as shaken or stirred as past incarnations, but fuller and more vital-sounding than before. While some of The Sound of Water misses the mark, the songs that hit are great enough to make you jelly-kneed. [#47, p.51]
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Saint Etienne has made an egregiously Cardigans-esque wrong turn, abandoning impeccable craft and Motown melodies for the breezy if aimless experimentation of its wildly uneven EPs.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 7.2 (out of 10) based on 5 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
john j gave it a10:
What a gorgeous and sophisticated pop album. Saint Etienne's best album, by far.
rob d gave it an8:
Very good. Their most sonically adventurous effort since So tough, although it reuires more attention. One of their best.
