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Civilization Image
Metascore
73

Generally favorable reviews - based on 7 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
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  • Summary: This is the debut full-length release for Atlanta electronic producer Michael Rathbun as Distal.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 7
  2. Negative: 0 out of 7
  1. The Wire
    Jul 24, 2012
    80
    Civilization's simplicity is deceptive: not every producer can take such basic elements and fashion somethings so thrillingly menacing. [May 2012, p.72]
  2. May 17, 2012
    80
    Clearly, Rathbun is a talented producer, and his debut full-length appears to imply that he's nowhere near to running out of ideas.
  3. May 18, 2012
    77
    Civilization is a record that evokes so many eras and moods at once in parallel that there's a deliberate possibility of the listener losing track of all the sonic attributions.
  4. May 17, 2012
    70
    It's an album of contrasts that can prove difficult and overlong one listen and breathtaking and fascinatingly complex the next, not a masterpiece by any means but a unique kind of impressive nonetheless.
  5. Q Magazine
    Jun 20, 2012
    60
    Despite its grandiose title [the album] is actually more concerned with sound than ideas, an experiment which proves more intriguing as a concept than it does as a complete listening experience. [Jun 2012, p.100]
  6. May 17, 2012
    60
    The tracks that are built on longer samples and vocals are more involving.
  7. May 17, 2012
    50
    More or less everything here sounds anaemic, lacking in body, squashed, diminutive, like it could be pushed over by a strong breeze--or, worse, drowned out by light conversation on the dancefloor.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of
  2. Mixed: 0 out of
  3. Negative: 0 out of