User ratings in Music are temporarily disabled. More info
- Summary: The increasingly prolific brother-sister duo of Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger (this time, sans grandmother) return with their fourth album.
- Record Label: Fat Possum
- Genre(s): Indie, Rock
- More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
-
Positive: 19 out of 30
-
Mixed: 9 out of 30
-
Negative: 2 out of 30
-
Alternative PressDespite the oddball showpieces, the Furnaces have refocused the lens on their homemade-pop kaleidoscope, and the result is a unversally resonant album that's not just more joyful than it's companion; it's also more essential. [Jul 2006, p.192]
-
Despite the mismatches of mood and style, wistfulness accumulates throughout this album's 72 minutes; there's an intriguing inwardness at the heart of this most cultish of bands.
-
Anyone who enjoyed having their brains and ears rearranged by Blueberry Boat and Rehearsing My Choir should find Bitter Tea enjoyable, but at this point, it seems like the most challenging thing the Fiery Furnaces could do is trust their pop instincts a little more often.
-
It’s true that they could probably benefit from a stricter censorship of their own endless creativity, but Bitter Tea is an uncontrolled outpouring of musical concepts in every way, and you sense that the Friedbergers wanted this.
-
Entertainment WeeklyAlternate[s] between childishly charming and plain irritating. [21 Apr 2006, p.73]
-
BlenderThe album's an impossible mess, but so lively that it's worth sifting through the shrapnel for the tasty bits. [May 2006, p.106]
-
Less a rebound from the indulgent for-friends-and-family-only nightmare of Rehearsing My Choir than a lateral side-step, Bitter Tea sounds like a desperate plea to be labeled as "clever."
Score distribution:
-
Positive: 28 out of 32
-
Mixed: 2 out of 32
-
Negative: 2 out of 32
-
PaulJSep 7, 2006
-
-
SpencerMApr 19, 2006
-
-
T.SpeeApr 17, 2006
-
-
AustinApr 23, 2006
-
-
shirleybApr 23, 2006
-
-
JohnDMay 20, 2006
-
-
EmmersonBApr 18, 2006drab, boring, incoherent. The cliches here are what you would expect: assigning "weird" as an indicator of quality.
-