- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Be Set Free isn't a game-changing album so much as it confirms that Langhorne Slim's talent can work within a wider framework than he's used in the past and still honor his gifts, and it's an impressive, pleasurable work.
-
In its lack of cleverness, the album has a certain wide-eyed innocence, and even the songs about hangovers show a generous perspective on life, of which music critics could do well to take note.
-
MojoLyricwise everything is simple, ready for sing-along consumption and sometimes you can almost visualise that bouncing ball heading a long the bottom of some YouTube screen. [Feb 2010, p. 95]
-
These are mediocre, and sometimes painfully inept, approximations of classic lovelorn folk tunes. At a short 38 minutes, the times aren’t changin’ fast enough.
-
On Be Set Free, Langhorne Slim perfectly captures the lyrical simplicity of bygone times with straightforward lines like, “I don’t want to break your heart, but I probably will.”
-
Be Set Free is the musical equivalent of a green bean casserole. It’s not going be anyone’s favorite dish at the table, but everyone, young and old, will want a second helping.
-
Q MagazineWhile his fourth album shows he has learnt his way around a reasonable tune - opener Back To The Wild has a distinctive grace - his lyrics can descend into trite cliche or inane observation ("Time it goes on/Life it goes by", "you'd love to pretend you were right/But you're wrong") [Feb 2010, p. 108]
-
Slim aims for the gut but usually ends up hitting the hips; either way, his relentlessly cloying lyrics ensure that Be Set Free is more suitable for soundtracks and square dances than headphones.
-
UncutAn uneven listening experience, to put it mildly. [Feb 2010, p.90]
-
Under The RadarWith a bevy of rhymes and metaphors straight out of Poetry 101, Slim leaves no romantic cliche unsung. [Fall 2009, p.72]
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 2 out of 2
-
Mixed: 0 out of 2
-
Negative: 0 out of 2
-
EricS.Jan 25, 2010