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Apr 13, 2015Admittedly, these are also slower-burning compositions that lack the hooks and pop immediacy of much of Villagers' previous work. Ultimately, however, the pulling back feels intentional and fitting for an album of songs that always seem born out of O'Brien's most personal experiences.
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Apr 20, 2015Darling Arithmetic finds O'Brien continuing to fashion his sound in this cherished manner, the tales he spawns both introspective and impressive.
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Apr 13, 2015Nevertheless for all the mature restraint and consummate mastery it can be hard not to miss the sheer energy and fury of previous albums, the restless experimentation.
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Apr 9, 2015Darling Arithmetic is rarely anything but elegant.
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Apr 10, 2015O'Brien manages to inhale stuffy themes of love and heartache and exhale fresh retellings.
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Apr 13, 2015With O’Brien running the gamut from one-night-stand shelf lurker (No One To Blame) and post-coital dewy (Dawning On Me) to resentful (Hot Scary Summer) and widowed (Darling Arithmetic). It’s a risky exercise but O’Brien pulls it off thanks to his trademark musical economy.
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Apr 9, 2015Lyrically it is rich pickings for those that savour the words so often masked by either sheer noise or mumbled vocals, as O’Brien proves how he has developed into a rather impressive poet.
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Apr 14, 2015Darling Arithmetic shows that O’Brien exists in a world unto himself.
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Apr 13, 2015An album that delivers a gorgeous, if somewhat restrained, step forward. It’s a document of quiet, if not necessarily earth-shattering, revelations.
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Apr 15, 2015It’s a graceful, beguiling and sumptuous set of songs, one worthy of both patience and praise, an extension of the excellence the Villagers brand introduced so early on.
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Q MagazineApr 10, 2015It's purging stuff, for sure, but clearly empowering and, as a listener, you're with him every step by highly emotional step. [May 2015, p.101]
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Apr 9, 2015Pared-down arrangements place O'Brien's exceptional songwriting at the forefront of each track. His voice and words, a paradoxical mix of worldly weariness and childlike delivery, are still present, and as enduring and endearing as ever.
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Apr 9, 2015It never manages to be magical.
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Apr 10, 2015It’s an elegant, thoughtful album, rendered in deft, subtle brushstrokes.
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Apr 9, 2015In Darling Artihmetic Conor O'Brien has put together his best album under the Villagers moniker.
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Apr 14, 2015While the album is willfully interior and musically conservative, it doesn’t ever feel cloistered, because of the emotional stakes that he keeps clearly in sight.
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Apr 13, 2015A few more like the angry Little Bigot (“Take that hatred and throw it on the fire,” it goes, over a three-legged rhythm) or the minor-key plucked swing of So Naive and Darling Arithmetic would add up to more than just another record in which devastation is mourned too mellifluously.
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Apr 14, 2015A sparse, mid-tempo acoustic account of lost love, almost the definition of a sensitive singer-songwriter album. Yet it is so focused in intent and precise in performance, it seems to mark an advance rather than a retreat, the mature arrival at the realisation that sometimes less really is more.
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UncutApr 10, 2015Nine luminous, clean0lined songs focus on love's myriad complexities. [May 2015, p.84]
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Under The RadarApr 17, 2015It's a tumultuous listen, but one that sweeps you up in its compassion, bravery, and beauty. [Apr - May 2015, p.88]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 8 out of 10
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Mixed: 0 out of 10
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Negative: 2 out of 10
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Dec 22, 2019
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Apr 28, 2015