Killing Puritans

EMAIL PRINTby Armand Van Helden

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Generally favorable reviews

Based on 9 critic reviews
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Album Info

Label: Armed

Release Date: 06 June 2000

Discs: 1 disc

Genre(s): Elecronic, Dance

Summary

Also By This Artist: Gandhi Kahn

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...

Wall of Sound

Van Helden's compositional modus operandi doesn't vary much between the 11 tracks, but it's a combination that rarely fails to deliver a knockout punch. He introduces one element -- a vocal snippet or a jazzy drum break -- and milks it for a spell, before introducing a contrasting timbre. The two begin to climb in and around each other, as Van Helden tweaks and twists various effects, bringing the music and momentum to a dizzy, unsettling pitch.

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Mojo

And if nothing on Killing Puritans has quite the commercial potential of last year's You Don't Know Me (a UK Number 1), it does have the same cheekily opportunistic spirit, Van Helden's sticky fingers busily probing all kinds of forgotten pop cultural corners.

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Dot Music

In drawing on rock, hip hop, electro, drum 'n' bass and early electronic artists, Van Helden mirrors the developments dance acts have been making in the UK and Europe, rather than US artists.

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New Musical Express

Ultimately, 'Killing Puritans' is well-crafted and commendably diverse, but somewhat joyless and cold. It aspires to social significance without having much serious to say, just as its creator casts himself as a taboo-trashing auteur rather than accept his true status as a skilled artisan in the commercial dance field.

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Rolling Stone

With Killing Puritans, Van Helden means to scramble and then reassemble house music like the Beasties' Paul's Boutique scrambled hip-hop in 1989. Like Paul's Boutique, Puritans initially seems chaotic and arcane, but with repeated dosage it starts to reveal itself as a pugnacious party album.

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All Music Guide

Harking back to the glory days of late-'80s acid-house, it's heavy on dark club jams that work around a simplistic sample with diva theatrics and rapper freestyles. As such, most of these tracks work much better on the dancefloor than the living room.

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CDNow

Getting through this album is a challenge. While Van Helden hits the mark on a few occasions, the bulk of Puritans irritates and frustrates as annoying samples create agonizingly long intros to otherwise solid tracks.

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Sonicnet

Van Helden continues to battle being pigeonholed by throwing disparate musical elements into the mix; unfortunately, the resulting musical tapestry is uneven.

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L.A. Weekly

With the exception of only a handful of moments -- most of which are more interesting in theory than in execution -- it's a very bad album, both in its politics and its sound.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 0.0 (out of 10) based on 0 User Votes

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Killing Puritans

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