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Even if you can't fully grasp the disc's existential subject matter, Happy Hollow is still a pleasure on the ears. [Sep 2006, p.207]
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All that metaphysical hand-wringing makes for some knotty songs, but the band attacks them with zeal. [25 Aug 2006, p.86]
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Intelligent indie-rockers, look nor listen no further for your possible album of the year.
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It's Cursive at their finest, challenging and smart and absolutely riveting.
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84[Kasher's] storytelling is still right up there with the very highest of Saddle-sitters. [#21, p.97]
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Like its predecessor, Happy Hollow is a moody album with an inherent instability.
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80Happy Hollow swings with the nutty abandon of Madness, sharpened with the literate punk frenzy of Fugazi. [Oct 2006, p.104]
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80Musically, his furiously gear-shifting punk-pop, full of horn blasts and arty production tricks... never fails to rock the sermon. [Aug 2006, p.107]
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80A lively collection. [Sep 2006, p.132]
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80An emo album that you don't have to be 17 to actually enjoy. [Sep 2006, p.100]
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It's an often frustrating listen, but in the end the album is a triumph.
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80A personal (and personnel) triumph for the band. [#73, p.90]
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80An ambitious, sprawling string of songs.
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There's an attention to detail and storytelling nous built up by those previous concept albums that makes further listening and exploration of Happy Hollow that much more rewarding.
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In the end it's the guitars, which alternate from restrained, melodic jangles to serrated feedback screams, and the general sense that Happy Hollow chronicles life during wartime that hold these 14 tune together, hymns or otherwise.
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While the album somewhat lacks the emotional punch of The Ugly Organ, it makes up for it in a fine storytelling tone and some bitchin' horns. [Summer 2006]
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Cursive aspires for greater things, and Kasher's aims are marred by over-production, a Nickelback whoosh here, a digitized cascade there.
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70Happy Hollow serves up more emo with prog on the side, then adds dirty blues, cabaret and art-rock garnish. [Sep 2006, p.79]
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[Kasher] stretches his tormented yowl and harsh guitars, with his band bashing even louder than on its 2004 breakthrough, The Ugly Organ. [7 Sep 2006, p.105]
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67The first seven songs kill, but the album's second half drags on longer than a Def Jam debut.
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Although Cursive is still one of the best at what it does, "Happy Hollow" fails to live up to previous greatness.
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60If Happy Hollow doesn't astound lyrically, though, it swings with force musically.
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40The painful punning of Bad Sects is just one of the many cringeworthy moments on an album that sees grown men wallowing in a teenage wasteland from which they really should have moved on.
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Happy Hollow is far too grouchy to be taken seriously.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 12 out of 14
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Mixed: 2 out of 14
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Negative: 0 out of 14
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BenS9
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MitchM10A fun ride the whole way through. Better than Ugly.
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KennyM10