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Mar 4, 2014This time round, perhaps due to Courtney’s settling down and the addition of Girls keyboardist Matt Kallman, the band sounds fuller and more mature, with a tendency to look forward rather than harking back to the past.
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Oct 30, 2014Real Estate already evaded the sophomore slump on 2011's impressive Days, now Atlas furthers the catalog.
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Mar 4, 2014It’s a quietly sublime work from a group of musicians who have always insisted--via their straight-up goofy music videos, Budweiser references and substitute teacher-like appearances--they’re just average suburbanites.
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Mar 3, 2014They’ve made the first record of their career that feels like it might teach you something over time. It is rare, and special, for a band to be this effortlessly and completely themselves.
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Mar 4, 2014The chords and arrangements on Atlas are the densest Real Estate have ever attempted, shading their sunshine into something palpably more mysterious, like a sunset in inclement weather.
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Mar 3, 2014With each album Real Estate has sharpened this process, making Atlas both immediately recognizable and their most interesting album to date.
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May 7, 2014The music Real Estate make is so melodic and plentiful that it could capture any feeling it wanted to--Atlas just transposes their sound into the evening.
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MojoMar 21, 2014Charm, tunes and a certain hazy vision--Real Estate have them in abundance, and on Atlas they are more than enough to coax endless summer warmth from behind the wall of winter. [Apr 2014, p.92]
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Q MagazineMar 14, 2014It contains some of the band's most beautiful, idyllic songs to date. [Apr 2014, p.117]
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UncutMar 7, 2014Atlas is dominated by a saturated prettiness that seems at once virtuoso and effortless. [Apr 2014, p.68]
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Mar 5, 2014If Real Estate captured the essence of summer, and Days maintained an unmistakably autumnal aura, then Atlas, the most thematically mature of the three, could easily be classified as Real Estate's wintery opus.
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Mar 4, 2014Atlas, the ever-weighty third album, finds this cohesive crew, past and present now in lockstep, considering how best to turn their internal dialogue outward and beyond.
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Mar 3, 2014The calm, earthy and delicate Atlas, the third Real Estate album, is less ambitious than its second album, “Days,” and somehow more heroic.
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Mar 3, 2014With third full-length Atlas, Real Estate grow even further into the sound they've been spinning for themselves, mellowing more while they become more nuanced in both playing and production.
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Mar 3, 2014As simple and unchallenging as Atlas is, it’s undoubtedly the group’s most emotionally resonant album, both sonically and lyrically, even if Real Estate chooses to unleash them in a diminutive sigh rather than a fearsome roar.
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Mar 3, 2014On first listen, their third album sounds undercooked but dig deep and, gradually, the five-piece are revealed as a tranquil indie-rock outfit whose songs evoke the innocence of your early 20s while shot through with a sadness that imbues them with depth.
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Feb 28, 2014There’ll be plenty of albums this year that grab you by the throat more vigorously than Atlas does, but very few of them will be quite as lovingly nuanced--and none will make the guitar sound anything like as appealing.
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Feb 27, 2014The excellent follow–up to 2011's Days is caught between a blissed-out Byrdsy summer of love and Deerhunter's gawky awkwardness, while shimmering slacker guitars heighten a sense of nostalgia.
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Feb 27, 2014The album plods occasionally, but then the band’s mastery of mood shifts kicks in and a dreamy landscape and simple, jangly verse turn into a big, beautiful chorus.
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Feb 26, 2014Through lulling endless days to fretting thoughts about the future, they remain the same bunch, capable of making the impossible sound almost too easy.
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Under The RadarFeb 26, 2014It's nostalgic and reflective, regretful and romantic. [Feb/Mar 2014, p.75]
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Feb 26, 2014Another excellent album from a band who know how to play to their strengths.
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Mar 6, 2014What's great about Atlas, the quintet's huge, intentional about-face of a third record, is that it most definitely didn't organically occur.
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Mar 5, 2014These songs are Polaroid snapshots of friends, families, lovers, cul-de-sacs and empty highways. Some are perfectly, sentimentally fuzzy, and some don’t quite make it into the scrapbook.
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Mar 4, 2014It's amiable, deceptively dense and, ultimately, rewarding.
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Mar 4, 2014Their third LP refines the approach with keyboardist Matt Kallman, allowing guitarists Martin Courtney and Matt Mondanile more curlicue time and adding a spacier vibe.
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Feb 27, 2014If ‘April’s Song’ is the low point of the record’s wanderlust--an affectless instrumental track that goes nowhere--elsewhere it blooms wonderfully.
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Feb 26, 2014Atlas is full of seemingly effortless, ageless, guitar-driven songcraft.
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Oct 28, 2014If anything, Atlas sounds like a fully formed album from another era, complete with woozy harmonies, an assured shimmer and a constant jangle.
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Mar 31, 2014Atlas sees a further distillation of their sound; where once appealingly fuzzy, guitars now chime with crystalline clarity.
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Feb 26, 2014It's a pity they remain slavishly committed to a successful template and too often Atlas feels like a memory of a memory.
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Mar 4, 2014The Real Estate of Days was eager to take the listener off guard, to show off its ample musicianship through tunefully off-kilter songs. In contrast, the band that made Atlas seems to be hesitatingly wondering what to do next. Here’s hoping it’s something surprising.
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Mar 3, 2014Though the record cleans up some with the drifting “How Might I Live” and a quick hit of sadness from closer “Navigator”, these are but mild highpoints in a waste of still-milder mediocrity
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 58 out of 68
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Mixed: 5 out of 68
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Negative: 5 out of 68
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Jul 2, 2020This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.
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Mar 5, 2014
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Mar 4, 2014