- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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Alternative Press9BA have a sense of urgency that should appeal both to Anglophiles and to punk scenesters who also inexplicably like Oasis. [Apr 2006, p.216]
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BillboardWhat they lack in ingenuity, they make up for by turning each song into a full-out event. [4 Mar 2006]
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BlenderUs[es] Nevermind as a trusty road map. [Apr 2006, p.116]
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Their dark yet energetic, garage pop - all needling, pivot-on-a-penny riffs, eruptive noise and high tensile dynamics - borrows from Buzzcocks, Pixies and Nirvana/Foo Fighters but, for all its tautness and intensity, there's little on Nine Black Alps' debut LP likely to change the world.
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NBA's sole but major problem is that so many of these songs - 'Unsatisfied', 'Shot Down', 'Ironside', the list goes on - lack anything like major soul.
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Entertainment WeeklyTunefully mix[es] alt-rock with proto-metal gestures and (bravo!) virtually no '80s references. [3 Mar 2006, p.103]
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FilterNine Black Alps' raucous nod to the early '90s sounds more heartfelt than the work of so many of their countrymen who can't get past the '80s. [#19, p.96]
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MojoRocks and then rocks harder, launching wave after wave of vicious punk hooks. [Jul 2005, p.106]
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New Musical Express (NME)Clever and memorable--an electrifying frisson of underground meets overground, punk purism meets pop perfection, artistic integrity meets not minding too much if more than five people like you. [11 Jun 2005, p.65]
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Nine Black Alps are definitely louder and more aggressive than many of their Britrock counterparts, but that's really nothing to boast about.
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Paste MagazineIts walls of distorted, alt-rock power chords reek of the 1990s. [Apr/May 2006, p.102]
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'Everything Is' is as frenzied as music gets, full of the energy that only comes with youthfulness, but also tinged with a world weariness that comes with being part of a hugely disaffected and cynical generation.
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I think there’s a kernel here on Everything Is, a hint of the possibility of something vital; but we’ll have to wait for the band to grow into their own skin to hear just where it takes them.
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Unsatisfying.
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Q MagazineUntil they learn to absorb their influences more cleverly, all this good work might be undone. [Jul 2005, p.119]
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Avoiding the tunelessness trap that has claimed rival Britgrungers such as Lostprophets, nearly every song comes with a chorus, though not at the expense of sales-generating monster chords.
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Sure, Nine Black Alps may be a more "genuine" concoction of Nirvana's formula, but how can this be considered revelatory or of interest when it comes across as so faceless?
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UncutNine Black Alps possess a secret weapon befitting a band whose emergence sparked a transatlantic A&R scramble: tunes. [Jun 2005, p.104]
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Under The RadarStraight ahead, balls-to-the-wall rock and roll. [#13, p.94]
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UrbIt rocks--hard. [Apr 2006, p.90]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 20 out of 22
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Mixed: 0 out of 22
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Negative: 2 out of 22
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AdrianMMar 28, 2006
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GarrettSMar 1, 2006
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AlexFeb 28, 2006class as! yes, it smacks of Nirvana.... but since when was that a bad thing? eh? eh?