Gang Of Losers
- The Dears
- Band Name: The Dears
- Record Label: Arts & Crafts
- Release Date: Oct 3, 2006
- Critic Score
- Most active
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100The Dears have never sounded so comfortable in their own skin.
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100For the first time, the cantankerous Lightburn matches his lyrics--from rapture to self-exploration to joy both lived and missed--perfectly with the music, which nods to Britpop but never succumbs to any genre trappings.
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90This... is still very much a Dears record: confused and unfocused, a messy kind of masterpiece. [Sep 2006, p.90]
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A haunting disc that lingers long after the laser dies.
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80The Dears stamp enough of their own personality to make this one of the best and most vital alternative US albums of 2006.
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Lightburn's tendency toward over-the-top melodrama has evolved into straightforward and heartfelt lyrics of love and loss. [Summer 2006]
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80Inventive, shape-shifting arrangements always go the extra mile. [Oct 2006, p.112]
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80Expect to see this album on 2006 Top 10 lists. [Oct 2006, p.118]
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They're a little less baroque, they're a little less depressing... but they're just as emotional and affecting, which makes Gang of Losers very good indeed.
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80Gang of Losers leaves behind the preciousness of 2003's delicate No Cities Left. [Oct 2006, p.105]
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Here's the thing about originality... You don't really need it when you play this proficiently. [Dec 2006, p.188]
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One of the year's more understated and beautifully paranoid gems.
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The Dears sound like a band who have finessed their vision and are ready, finally, to take on the world.
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80Excellent. [Oct 2006, p.142]
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The real difference between this album and past Dears efforts, though, is not so much musical directness as Lightburn's lyrical attempts to become the spokesman for the dispossessed.
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80In the end, what makes the Dears a cut above, a band that deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as its Canadian indie compatriots the New Pornographers or Broken Social Scene, is the voice of Lightburn.
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74When the band shines, it reaches stunning heights. [#22, p.102]
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70The overall tone of the album isn't entirely dark and hopeless, although Lightburn fails to leave us with any specific resolve, instead content for some questions to remain unanswered.
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Strangely, what the sloppier approach really does is highlight bandleader Murray Lightburn's wondrous voice.
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67The band is, if anything, more confident than ever, but the sound's grandiosity too easily verges on melodrama, a too-bold-to-be-believable misery.
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The Dears are now less idiosyncratic but have successfully made the kind of straightforwardly satisfying album that you'd expect from a band on their second decade.
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60Though less indebted to the Smiths... these tidally anthemic doom-ditties still manage to sound more dire. [Oct 2006, p.135]
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60Precisely assembled, melodic songs that shiver with emotion. [Sep 2006, p.107]
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So, no, this isn't the sound of The Dears taking it to the next level, but the level they're on is still pretty solid.
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It's the band's fussiest, most elaborately conceived work to date. [Nov 2006, p.83]
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The Dears really do sound a lot like late-'90s Blur.
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60The Dears' biggest coup with Gang Of Losers, though, is Lightburn's newfound ability to express his own sturm und drang through varied delivery rather than just a bloodcurdling caterwaul.
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A much more mediocre, boring, phoned-in, lyrically tripe-y batch of tip-toeing Brit-pop snooze-o-rama-fests.
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Shorn of the orchestral lushness that distinguished their previous effort, The Dears now have little to recommend them.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 11 out of 12
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Mixed: 1 out of 12
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Negative: 0 out of 12
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Cat10Truly emotional and powerful stuff from this talented band. This was the best album of 06.
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BlakeL10Great, great album.
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YannickW9