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Here Before Image
Metascore
73

Generally favorable reviews - based on 17 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
8.0

Generally favorable reviews- based on 6 Ratings

  • Summary: Recorded in Hoboken, this New Jersey band continues their post-punk/new wave sound with their first collection of new music in nearly 19 years.
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  • Record Label: Bar/None
  • Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock, Punk/New Wave, American Underground, Jangle Pop, College Rock
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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 13 out of 17
  2. Negative: 0 out of 17
  1. Apr 21, 2011
    88
    "Is it too late to do it again?" Clearly not.
  2. May 12, 2011
    80
    The Feelies were a product of the New Jersey suburbs, and Here Before speaks to their origins: its distinctly pastoral feeling is tempered with a slight nervousness and tension, the sound of the city meeting the countryside. It's gorgeous.
  3. Dec 9, 2011
    80
    Now as before, there are few groups in rock & roll that perform as brilliantly and purposefully as an ensemble as the Feelies, and on Here Before their trademark sound remains a thing of wonder that hasn't been dimmed a bit by the passage of time.
  4. Apr 12, 2011
    75
    Here, the Feelies simply dig up The Good Earth's pastoral, post-Velvets power-pop -- a sound that ruled college radio airwaves in the mid-80s but which boasts few notable contemporary adherents -- and blissfully strum away as if they were performing in hammocks.
  5. Apr 26, 2011
    70
    Here Before questions its existence as a new chapter for the band while content to see it closed, mentions of transition and introspection at the core of their story. What you can take from it is that its protagonists are aging gracefully and that, if this is their last hurrah, The Feelies are going out strong.
  6. Jun 23, 2011
    67
    If anything, Here Before echoes the pastel colors of 1986's The Good Earth, each song a subtle variant of the next, measured and metronomic. This isn't a first-spin grabber, but if you're as patient as the Feelies have been, it might grow on you.
  7. Uncut
    May 13, 2011
    40
    It's largely composed of pretty humdrum strum and twang, defining The Feelies less as the missing link between The Modern Lovers and Vampire Weekend, more as the founders of '80s college rock ordinaire. [Jun 2011, p.82]

See all 17 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of
  2. Mixed: 0 out of
  3. Negative: 0 out of

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