- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
It’s a glorious mess of a record, reaching for everything at once, and hitting most of it.
-
The album boasts the most opaque lyrics in Subtle's catalog. But put the record and the website together, and the big themes become clear.
-
Even if this time around the music takes a more prominent role, it’s this delivery that gives ExitingARM a sense of unity.
-
It’s from this multi-layered hive of instrumentation and exquisite verb-spouting though where ExitingARM begins to flourish.
-
A triumph on many levels and a failure on only a few small fronts, ExitingARM is a more than worthy addition to Themselve’s vast array of musical treasures, and a sign that perhaps in the future we’ll see a truly universal album come from anticon.’s most brilliant duo.
-
Musically, ExitingARM is just as layered, blenderizing beats, sampled electronic noise, and Doseone's easygoing, flowing words into a package that's sometimes electrifying and sometimes confounding.
-
Not that every track here needs to be radio-ready, it's just that with the themes being so dense, another morsel to take with you would have been welcome.
-
A few moments of uncomplicated clarity (a stirringly memorable hook or clarion-call chorus) would elevate ExitingARM from brilliant mess to true pop genius.
-
Alternative PressExiting Arm is another step forward in the brillant career of a group unafraid to switch it up. [June 2008, p.137]
-
While Subtle remains as challenging as ever, there's less exhaustion in finding the nugget, for a record that finally capitalizes on the potential of Subtle's raucous live performances. [May/June 2008, p.94]
-
The WireWhile there's no doubting that Subtle can create, populate and soundtrack a world of their own, it's not always clear whether it was worth it. [May 2008, p.65]
-
ExitingARM, for all of its knotted statements and implications, represents nothing more or less than Dose falling down the rabbit hole of his own imagination. Choose to follow and find what a confounding, uneasy, and exciting place it is to be.
-
For however much this album is worth berating, there's no denying that Subtle are an extremely talented group of musicians, and ExitingARM is not so much a fuck-up as it is a trial in exploring limitations.
-
The problem is, because the songs are so dense, and the lyrics nearly unintelligible, it becomes difficult to differentiate Exiting Arm from the band's other work, and because of that, makes the album a bit of a disappointment.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 4 out of 5
-
Mixed: 1 out of 5
-
Negative: 0 out of 5
-
DavidRJun 9, 2008Great new release from anticon's experimental hip-hop/electronic/rock group. Breath of fresh air.