Metascore
75

Generally favorable reviews - based on 19 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 19
  2. Negative: 0 out of 19
  1. Feb 21, 2012
    80
    As messy and thoughtful a take on house as we're likely to hear this year.
  2. Uncut
    Feb 10, 2012
    60
    While house purists might find it juvenile, and there are some aimless passages, the lo-fi production is beautiful. [Mar 2012, p.87]
  3. Q Magazine
    Feb 22, 2012
    60
    Hive Mind sounds at once strange and familiar. [Mar 2012, p.100]
  4. Feb 10, 2012
    80
    It's a creative, intelligent and serious work that also has moments of considerable fun.
  5. Mar 20, 2012
    70
    On Hive Mind, Ital delivers a refreshing approach to instrumental electronics, with equal disinterest for both the club and headphone scenes, pissing off Internet purists in the process.
  6. Feb 27, 2012
    80
    After multiple listens, the desire to rip apart Martin-McCormick's stitched together freak is assuaged by a desire to submit to it and play it on repeat, to revel in its drive, energy and emotion.
  7. Feb 10, 2012
    70
    Take it as deep dance for when there aren't enough hours in the day.
  8. Feb 21, 2012
    80
    Everything on this oddball album demands your attention, often in unexpected ways.
  9. Feb 13, 2012
    70
    The album pursues a house sound consistent with 2011's Ital's Theme.
  10. The Wire
    Feb 17, 2012
    70
    The tracks are subject to strategies of sampling, distortion, cut-up and back masking, to a troubling point of excess, impurity, queasiness, and corrosion, unheard of in earlier releases. [Feb 2012, p.60]
  11. Mar 6, 2012
    55
    It ultimately lacks cohesiveness and direction to evolve into something truly outstanding, but still remains intriguing enough to possibly earn points with the more adventurous listeners.
  12. Feb 15, 2012
    70
    These are long form constructions, masterfully wrought from the simplest of sonic elements--basically just synths, the odd sample and plenty of percussion--and festooned with idiosyncratic detail.
  13. Feb 24, 2012
    81
    Hive Mind is confident in finding a throughway and becomes as much a joy to listen to for its toy-box experimentation as it is for its head-nodding immediacy.
  14. 80
    Focusing on the music and what's happening within and around it – enables Hive Mind to deliver a truly excellent aural experience.
  15. Mar 9, 2012
    80
    Hive Mind, follows in the vein of "Ital's Theme" by focusing on warm, softly throbbing textural slides over insistent 4/4 rhythms to forge a kind of day-drifted vagabond music akin to the work of acts like Blondes or The Miracles Club.
  16. Feb 10, 2012
    88
    It'll inevitably be pigeonholed as post-house or something equally asinine, but for now, it exists without definition, and for that we can be grateful.
  17. Feb 10, 2012
    80
    A welcome 40-minute excursion indeed.
  18. Feb 15, 2012
    60
    Hive Mind doesn't quite possess the same strength as what has preceded it.
  19. Feb 28, 2012
    75
    Had he trimmed the fat a touch and maybe tacked on an extra track or two in its place, Ital's LP might have been something closer to remarkable.

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