Buy Now
| Buy on |
|
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Jun 12, 2017More candid but just as magical, City Music is another magnificent record from Morby.
-
Jun 12, 2017City Music is, without fail, one of the most quintessential albums of the year so far.
-
UncutJun 6, 2017This wired counterpart [to 2016's lush Singing Saw]pays tribute to a New York tat now exists only in the songwriter's head, or his record collection. [Jul 2017, p.35]
-
Jun 16, 2017There’s a lot of musical shape-shifting on City Music, but the varied approach helps capture the gritty, up-and-down nature of a place that never sleeps.
-
Jun 21, 2017It’s not hard to hear City Music as a lament for lost innocence, a pledge to maintain optimism and humanity at a time when those qualities don’t just feel like vestiges of youth, but of some better civilization that’s rapidly disappearing. In his best album yet, Morby makes a prayer out of the squall.
-
Jun 16, 2017As with his debut, City Music feels very much like a postcard to New York, though this time Morby arrives with some accumulated miles to help support his wizened tone.
-
Jun 16, 2017City living might sometimes feel like a constant high-intensity assault course, but City Music and its creator make it sound like an enlightening, emboldening adventure.
-
Jun 16, 2017In its own way, City Music is just as ambitious as the more obviously musically ambitious Singing Saw was; have this on hand for certain literary yet off-kilter late night city moods.
-
Jun 15, 2017From the outset it makes clear that it features songs that aren’t rooted in any one place or time, but are effortlessly stitched together to create a dynamic mapping of modern urban existence.
-
Q MagazineJun 6, 2017City Music maps a landscape of uncertainty and wonder, Morby first steadying the wheel with his sure songwriting, then letting it spin. We've all been there, but not quite like this. [Aug 2017, p.111]
-
Jun 14, 2017City Music doesn’t hustle and bustle. But it won’t let you miss it, either.
-
Jun 30, 2017It’s all a challenge, and it doesn’t always work in Morby’s vision. ... Morby might be digging through a city’s musical landscape, but he’s reaching for something that persists, and the people to persist with him.
-
Jun 21, 2017While City Music certainly doesn’t surpass Singing Saw, it’s a hell of a lot of fun to hear Morby take a walk on the wild side.
-
Jun 19, 2017It’s almost inevitable that an urban record made by an American rock classicist--especially one who moved to New York as a teenager like Morby did--will evoke Lou Reed. ... Shooting for a rawer, more stripped-back sound has left certain songs on City Music feeling under-powered and –developed, however.
-
Jun 14, 2017It’s clear that after a year on the road with the same musicians he’s back into thinking in band mode and how songs will best be served by a four piece line-up. This result is more fully-realised songs.
-
Jun 13, 2017If last year's Singing Saw had the pace and feel of going down river, City Music has that of heading down the avenue. Morby vacillates in both settings comfortably, claiming them as his element.
-
Jun 15, 2017When the record does stumble, it’s because he’s trying to juggle too many ideas at one time as opposed to a lack of effort. Mostly, City Music succeeds at displaying Morby’s strength as a rocker, and along with Singing Saw, the two together paint him as an artist truly coming into his own.
-
MojoJun 6, 2017If this is about cities, it's cities glimpsed in poetic, fragmentary dreams. [Jul 2017, p.90]
-
Jun 6, 2017Morby is able to conjure vast stretches of beauty, but can also disrupt them, causing dead ends and roadblocks for a listener. City Songs, while by no means an ugly sprawl, perhaps just needed a tad more urban planning.
-
Jun 20, 2017Unfortunately, Morby's latest effort seems to purposefully aim for the very middlest of the road.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 22 out of 27
-
Mixed: 3 out of 27
-
Negative: 2 out of 27
-
Jul 13, 2017
-
Jun 26, 2017