User ratings in Music are temporarily disabled. More info
- Summary: The duo from San Francisco releases their first album in three years.
- Record Label: Jagjaguwar
- Genre(s): Indie, Rock, Folk
- More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
-
Positive: 6 out of 8
-
Mixed: 2 out of 8
-
Negative: 0 out of 8
-
Gorgeous Johnny may be too well crafted for the band's traditional-leaning fans, but its highlights are hard to resist.
-
MojoThe 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]
-
All of the songs here are strong enough to be bolstered (rather than swamped) by their rococo touches and period piece flourishes.
-
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.
-
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.
-
In the end there are too few of those evocative moments, and Gorgeous Johnny ends up coming off as a less than inviting album.
-
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.