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Gorgeous Johnny Image
Metascore
71

Generally favorable reviews - based on 8 Critic Reviews What's this?

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  • Summary: The duo from San Francisco releases their first album in three years.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 8
  2. Negative: 0 out of 8
  1. Gorgeous Johnny may be too well crafted for the band's traditional-leaning fans, but its highlights are hard to resist.
  2. Mojo
    80
    The core idea brings a bright focus and forward movement to their gummy, ambrosial stoner sound, adding bright melody and fairytale zing to these end-of-summer tales of beachbound escape and smalltown torpor. [Nov 2009, p.101]
  3. All of the songs here are strong enough to be bolstered (rather than swamped) by their rococo touches and period piece flourishes.
  4. They are not in tune with trends, or even an aesthetic, so much as something earthier...the seasons perhaps, because there’s no denying that Gorgeous Johnny has a latitude and a longitude... it’s the sound of a fading summer.
  5. The guitars are jangly and questionably tuned; the drums are doused in whiskey but always manage to keep the train moving; and the vocals are passionately out-of-key but always a perfect companion to the aesthetic and historical world they float within.
  6. In the end there are too few of those evocative moments, and Gorgeous Johnny ends up coming off as a less than inviting album.
  7. The bulk of Gorgeous Johnny is unfortunately too earnest and too patient really to go anywhere in particular, preening like a collection of meticulously cleaned Travis demos or, at their worst, an Adam Green album without any of the dirty bits.

See all 8 Critic Reviews