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Field Manual Image
Metascore
64

Generally favorable reviews - based on 17 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
6.8

Generally favorable reviews- based on 9 Ratings

  • Summary: Death Cab for Cutie member and producer releases his debut solo album.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 17
  2. Negative: 1 out of 17
  1. Under The Radar
    80
    Field Manual isn’t full of direct orders, it’s full of the emotions of someone who’s grappling with the realization that there are no longer any rules of engagement. [Winter 2008, p.85]
  2. Entertainment Weekly
    75
    The results aren't exactly groundbreaking--but they'll provide a thoroughly pleasant way for Death Cab fans to while away the months until the full band's next CD drops in May. [15 Feb 2008, 67]
  3. He can certainly sing, but years of providing seamless harmonies for Gibbard have given his pipes a clear, breathy quality that threatens to lull the listener into a trance during the album's final stretch.
  4. On the whole, Field Manual is a solid record.
  5. Too often these songs sound like Death Cab B-sides, like the 'I Will Follow You Into The Dark'-mining 'A Bird Is A Song.'
  6. Add Walla to the list of producers who should stay producers: Field Manual sounds great, but it isn't always worth listening to.
  7. Aesthetically the album is an equally awful collection of pabulum, completely derelict in its offerings of arrangements and tones, sanded smooth of its personality and as derivative in its every moment as the bands it’s most derivative of.

See all 17 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 2
  3. Negative: 0 out of 2
  1. JohnS.
    Feb 7, 2008
    10
    I can't stop listening to this.
  2. Ryan
    Feb 8, 2008
    7
    Sounds like it could be a Death Cab outtake album.