Field Music - Field Music
Metascore
77 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 18 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 18
  2. Negative: 0 out of 18
  1. 91
    Few bands this side of Wilco float along so easily on little more than diagonally rendered elegiac noises and severe anxiety disorder. [Mar 2006, p.95]
  2. Field Music is a joyful piece of pop art, and a case study in how fragments can make mosaics.
  3. It's an excellent nod to XTC's mod-pop, played with a frenetic edge for the ADD generation. [7 Apr 2006, p.63]
  4. The record is a gem. Twelve tracks with a sense of cohesiveness that side-steps homogeneity in favor of straight-up old-fashioned album workmanship.
  5. A debut offering of preposterously ace swoon-pop. [6 Aug 2005, p.56]
  6. 80
    [An] intriguing debut. [Sep 2005, p.103]
  7. Smart, inventive, and exciting guitar pop.
  8. What is most interesting about this record, apart from it's self-assured collection of off-beat laments is the amount of exciting doorways it flings open for the future.
  9. Effortlessly blends candy-pop conventions with the concise edge of punk. [Jun/Jul 2006, p.128]
  10. Instead of embracing the angularity of the self-conscious Britpop and New Wave scenes of yore, Field Music embrace the sugary pop-rock that defined the first British Invasion.
  11. More ephemeral than Clor, more cerebral than the Rakes, Field Music has, like the Magic Numbers, fashioned a distinctive voice and near-perfect arrangements, but the songs hint at greatness nearly as often as they achieve it.
  12. These are songs that veer to and fro, frequently sounding as if they're nearly about to run off the rails.
  13. A top-to-bottom solid collection of art pop. [#13, p.85]
  14. Even Paul McCartney himself hasn't made an album this McCartneyish for some twenty-odd years now.
  15. Hard work but worth the effort. [Oct 2005, p.117]
  16. 60
    Songs are succinct yet maintain an eye for layering oblique, eccentric detail of almost prog proportions. [Jun 2006, p.111]
  17. The band's shortcomings only become apparent when looking at the album as a whole; its repetition of the same sunshine formula loses it flare right around the third track, when the record's pace begins to slow.
  18. Field Music is a classic case of an album that sounds so good that it takes a while before you realize that there really isn't much going on beneath the surface.
User Score

Universal acclaim- based on 5 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 5
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 5
  3. Negative: 0 out of 5
  1. LawrenceP
    8
    At first it seems kind of plain...but after half a dozen spins, it hits you in the most sublime way and I love every note of it!
  2. BenJ
    8
    I can't think of another album I've bought which has taken so many spins before I've finally "got" it. Initially disappointing at first it's brilliance grows after numerous spins. Well worth investigating. Full Review »
  3. WomboA
    9
    Sounds like Elbow on candy and ecstasy. And XTC.