- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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Mar 28, 2014These New Puritans are still thinking the same off-kilter, rhythmically intricate thoughts, but filtering them through a whole different music making process. Either way, it’s impressive and quite lovely. Nicely done.
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Mar 7, 2014It’s just the right balance of heavy and light tones, a mixture that Barnett & Co. continue to perfect throughout the whole album.
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Jan 15, 2014Field of Reeds is a record that continues to hint at promise for a still-young band--no, it is not an outright masterpiece, but there’s enough to commend it that suggests that These New Puritans might not be far off.
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Jul 25, 2013It’s really, really beautiful--beauty as it should be in music: something precious, elusive and exotic, or indeterminate, a little sad and more than a little elegant.
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MojoJul 10, 2013Field of Reeds is a startlingly listenable proposition. [Aug 2013, p.92]
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The WireJul 3, 2013These New Puritans feel better equipped than most to carry that mantle, a vision of English pastoral music heavy with stoicism and solitude; both steeped in, yet strangely unencumbered by history. [Jun 2013, p.55]
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Jun 27, 2013Give yourself over to what’s not only a 21st-century masterpiece, but also something timeless that will resonate whenever you find it.
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Jun 21, 2013Listening to Field of Reeds sometimes feels like taking a test and forgetting everything you thought you studied for. At the same token, its gorgeous production, control, and vision make it hard to turn away from.
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Jun 20, 2013Pinned up and thoroughly artistic, Field of Reeds is affecting, but it’s also hard to get genuinely excited about.
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Q MagazineJun 17, 2013The results are beautifully muted yet murkily enticing, evoking Robert Wyatt's pastoral-prog reverie Rock Bottom. [Jul 2013, p.111]
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Jun 17, 2013Field of Reeds may initially come across as inhumanely taut, straining, and indistinct to begin with, but this is the sound of precociousness finally arriving at a purpose.
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Jun 14, 2013While Field of Reeds is a mysterious album in many ways, what it makes clear is Barnett’s faith in the purity of sound, rather than words, to communicate.
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Jun 13, 2013Quiet, diligent, and touching--this could very well be These New Puritans’ masterwork.
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UncutJun 10, 2013A tough one to make but astonishingly realised, Fields of Reeds is further evidence that they're out there, on their own. [Jul 2013, p.65]
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Jun 10, 2013For TNP converts this will no doubt be regarded as a masterpiece. But for the casual listener, it’s simply another solid 21st century ambient record to help while away the late hours.
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Jun 10, 2013For all Barnett's seriousness of purpose, he works with emotion, demonstrated above all in his own voice: never quite in tune, it is poignantly human in its imperfection.
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Jun 10, 2013A rich, complex album that, similarly, rewards both the grand overview and close attention, and offers up fresh details, insights and emotions with each listen.
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Jun 10, 2013Ambition often manifests itself into self-indulgence, and from the off you're convinced Field Of Reed could slip into said territory. But it's an exceptional case, where its makers hit the jackpot, where imagination runs riot and gets away with every daring feat, each one more foolish than the previous.
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Jun 10, 2013It's that rare thing: an album that will reward repeated listening by drip-feeding you its secrets.
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Jun 10, 2013While it isn’t pretty, cute, comfortable or enlightening music, Field of Reeds is important, resonant, serious and very very clever.
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Jun 10, 2013Perhaps the great achievement is that, in delivering an album that invites close scrutiny, These New Puritans create an aural haven from the very lifestyle Field of Reeds challenges.
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Jun 10, 2013This perfectionism, present in the sonics and in the complex arrangements, makes Field of Reeds the most challenging title in their catalog and also the most groundbreaking.
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Jun 10, 2013The music on Field Of Reeds is certainly not easily accessible but, at its heart, this is a supremely evocative album.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 39 out of 44
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Mixed: 3 out of 44
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Negative: 2 out of 44
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Jul 22, 2013
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Jun 11, 2013
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Jun 11, 2013