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- Critic score
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Nov 8, 2019Not all of it is easy listening, but all of it is worth hearing.
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Dec 18, 2019While the band may seem more aware of emphatic expression overall, many of the melodies maintain the anthemic perspective that ‘s always been so inherent and inspired.
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Oct 14, 2019The Avetts have been doing this for too long and are too accomplished as songwriters to make an album that's a total dud. The good stuff on Closer Than Together is really quite excellent. But when the balance is just a bit more good material than mediocre (or worse) material, you start to question the production choices involved.
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Oct 14, 2019High points feel scattered among a patchwork of pillowy piano tunes, conspicuous genre experiments and politically charged trial balloons. There are good things and not-so-good things here, but there is no cohesion in the overall work. Closer Than Together doesn’t hang together as a whole.
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Oct 14, 2019While the band sometimes flirts with modern sounds -- witness the overheated neo-new wave beats fueling "High Steppin'" -- they usually default to an affectless folk-rock that shows a considerable debt to Bob Dylan.
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Nov 6, 2019It's a poor album that irks and annoys at every turn, excellent musicianship and performance rendered irrelevant by the turgid material. Exhausting stuff.
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Oct 14, 2019Sadly, precious little restraint is found on the stuffy, haughty Closer Than Together.