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Although it's definitely a bit bi-polar, Cryptograms still gets high marks for offering up a slew of great tracks and actually gaining strength the longer it goes on.
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Half of me thinks the group was aiming for a bit of something hypnotized and dreamy, that they worship Spacemen 3 and the patience that entails. But then the other half thinks Cryptograms is something gritty and furious, maybe something religious, but still something of a turtlehead waiting to poke through.
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This album has something for everyone and will appeal to the kids who like ambient drone pieces and folks who love songs with great pop hooks - and everyone in between.
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The sequencing allows the listener space to breathe at the most opportune moments, and its leaps from ambience into adrenaline-soaked enthusiasm for hand-clap-happy high-jinx are worthy of celebration.
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Cryptograms is a tonal wash of brisk speed kicks and seasick comedowns, the kind of thing you could lose an afternoon to.
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This is not a complete or coherent narrative of despair, as the two album halves don’t particularly work with one another—it really feels like two EPs sewn together. But the effort is more than evocative enough to scare the hell out of you, at least for a little while.
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Paste Magazine[Cryptograms] occasionally surprises with its accessibility. [Apr 2007, p.58]
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While Cryptograms presents its own obstacles, it's easily enjoyed as a whole. Memorable melodies and an awkward, charismatic narrator are often peeking from behind the dissonance-laden mists that self-consciously choke them.
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When the proper songs throughout are so uniformly good in spite of their fractured approaches, complaining about scarcity seems despicably greedy.
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Cryptograms is by no means a flawless record, but taking the time to speak its language, tap into the dueling forces that make it tick, is an intriguing reward.
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Yeah, the alternate/alternating track sequence is screwy for the first seven songs or so — Deerhunter build momentum only to lose it. But it gives the album’s backside something of a black-and-white-to-Technicolor moment.
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[A] near-masterpiece.
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Under The RadarIts unified, gorgeous, unpretentious originality shines like a beacon of hope in the ever dumbed down world of commercialized indie rock. [#17, p.91]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 36 out of 45
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Mixed: 7 out of 45
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Negative: 2 out of 45
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Aug 19, 2022
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Oct 28, 2014
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Oct 23, 2011