- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
The band's fourth album Awoo keeps the lyrical restraint, but restores some of the energy of The Hidden Cameras' early work, in more of a rock 'n' roll vein.
-
Genuinely affecting, and fun, pop music.
-
UrbA sometimes abrupt, hard-to-pin-down voyage with fun surprises and plot twists. [Sep 2006, p.131]
-
A guilty pleasure it may be, but when the pleasure is as intense as this, quite frankly who gives a fuck?
-
This is by far their most accessible and cohesive record yet, and despite a couple of well-meaning but ultimately derivative hiccups in its second half, Awoo should bring a much larger audience into the fold.
-
UncutA sweeter collection of songs this year you'll be hard pushed to find. [Oct 2006, p.110]
-
Under The RadarAwoo is the kind of album that gets stuck in your head and makes you start humming. [#15]
-
New Musical Express (NME)An excellent third album. [23 Sep 2006, p.31]
-
Frankly, you could pick pretty much any song at random and be guaranteed either a gorgeous slab of jubilation or a bittersweet drop of beatification.
-
Paste MagazineIf... Donovan and the guy from Blues Traveler had a baby... it would... sound like this. [Mar 2007, p.63]
-
Rather than winning over new converts, AWOO’s main achievement might be to delineate, skilfully but inescapably, the outer boundaries of its creators’ artistic reach.
-
He’s brought together his best batch of melodies yet, along with lyrics that aim less to shock than to amuse.
-
Q MagazineTightly controlled melodic songs reminiscent of R.E.M. or The Velvet Underground. [Oct 2006, p.120]
-
MagnetIf you aren't smitten with this band yet, you will be soon. [#73, p.94]
-
The album is more polished and accessible than the band's previous work and other childlike plinky pop like Danielson.
-
If the worst are a bit so-so indie, the best soar blissfully on melodies reminiscent of gold autumn days and Belle & Sebastian as they tackle loneliness and love.
-
All in all, The Hidden Cameras are typical of the avant garde, slightly off-kilter art rock we've come to expect from Canada, not a million miles away from what's being offered by fellow countrymen The Decemberists or Broken Social Scene.
-
MojoAt ease with the mellower cuts... the more aggressive Learnign The Lie and the stop-start instrumental Heji feel more contrived. [Oct 2006, p.112]
-
SpinGibb... is the seamy, sex-fueled yang to the ascetic yin of the Magnetic Fields' Stephin Merritt. [Oct 2006, p.98]
-
There's little here that couldn't have been on previous albums; the difference is what's gone missing: the in-your-face homosexuality of Rough Trade debut The Smell of Our Own, the perverse grandiosity of 2004's Mississauga Goddam.
-
In the end, AWOO disappoints not on the strength of its music, which is accomplished if not particularly thrilling, but from a sense of missed potential.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 5 out of 6
-
Mixed: 0 out of 6
-
Negative: 1 out of 6
-
calvinhobbesOct 3, 2006You will play this album for days and days. Trust me.