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Investigate Witch Cults Of The Radio Age - Broadcast And The Focus Group
Metascore
79 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 10 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 10
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 10
  3. Negative: 0 out of 10
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  1. Uncut
    100
    Hubble bubble! From weird sources and high ideals comes a spooky, sensual piece of pop sorcery. And it's bewitching. [Dec 2009, p. 91]
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  2. Drowned In Sound
    80
    Broadcast and House have fashioned an artefact that could well work similar magic on future generations of wide-eyed sonic archaeologists.
  3. All Music Guide
    80
    Not so much a soundtrack to a film that was never made as it is music that demands images to accompany it, this is a welcome return after the four years of silence that followed Tender Buttons.
  4. Tiny Mix Tapes
    80
    Rather than attempt to recruit other players and resume business as usual, Broadcast subsumes House's spectral compositions within a framework that suits every one of the duo's strengths. If there's anything scary about this at all, it's the ease with which they've made the corpse of pop songcraft climb from its grave and walk anew.
  5. Dusted Magazine
    80
    In combining antiquated influences with their own postmodern sensibilities, Broadcast and the Focus Group have together created an evocative and imaginative work that is in many ways more challenging and rewarding than the former's own proper albums.
  6. PopMatters
    80
    There's a good degree of concrčte and textural sound in his largely pastiche songs, which makes listening like walking blind through a world whose architecturally specific look is even more vivid in one's mind.
  7. Pitchfork
    72
    Witch Cults is like the sound of Broadcast and the Focus Group trying to cast their spells at the same time: Some of the record is great, plenty of it is cross-chatter.
  8. Under The Radar
    70
    It is a gorgeous record, and a nightmarish one at that. [Holiday 2009, p.78]
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  9. cokemachineglow
    56
    If anything, this is an effective teaser for a new Broadcast album, since many of the tracks here could easily be part of great Broadcast songs, but in this form, they aren't, and it's clear that we both know that.
  10. Austin Chronicle
    50
    At 23 songs, the UK electro duo's fourth full-length has a lot of room for experimentation, but it comes off more like the soundtrack for a 1960s Hammer film.
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User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. hydrawithears
    10
    After releasing three exceptional albums, Broadcast made the fans wait few years for what would be their magnum opus. Trish Keenan and James Cargill turned to Julian House of The Focus Group (responsible for artwork of Broadcast’s records) for help on this one and the result was less a standard LP, more an experiment. Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age is the least straightforward (and naturally the most difficult) offering by the band but it was named by The Wire as the greatest release of 2009 for a reason. Let yourself in and discover an unbelievable sonic collage that is an homage to the ’60s and the fascination with paganism and drugs/mind relationship, and an exercise in limitlessness of music at the same time. The word “radio” does not appear by chance. Listening to this album is like turning the knob and getting various radio waves: sometimes it is a strange mansion party, the other time – a ritual chant. Broadcast and The Focus Group collected a vast collection of haunting samples. For, mostly, Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age feels like a soundtrack to a forgotten horror. Think of The Wicker Man or Rosemary’s Baby yet with its 23 tracks the mood is rather changeable. One is for sure: it will haunt you for a long time. The best moments come with Trish singing. The Be Colony opens with spooky Ra ra ra and turns into a demonic mantra. It is not hard to imagine naked ladies dancing for their black master soundtracked by this tune. I See, So I See So is one of the lightest tracks as it deals with solar matters. On the other hand, Libra, the Mirror’s Minor Self is mysterious and has that kind of evil burnt on it that at first lures you and then enjoys making you suffer. Make My Sleep His Song bewitches with fantastic organ. The song feels like a lost soul lament. Finally, the last song reuses The Be Colony motif to glorious effects. It is time to wake up from the nightmare but to enter Broadcast’s final vision to date simply make the disc spin again. All Broadcast fans should also hear Mother Is the Milky Way EP (In Here the World Begins is highly recommended), a limited CD from the last tour of the Birmingham dreamers.… Full Review »
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