• Record Label: Sub Pop
  • Release Date: Feb 25, 2014
Metascore
72

Generally favorable reviews - based on 14 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 14
  2. Negative: 0 out of 14
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  1. Feb 24, 2014
    90
    Island Intervals is barely over half an hour, but it's so rich with mood and detail that it stretches out and out and out to the horizon and beyond.
  2. Feb 25, 2014
    80
    Island Intervals marks a giant leap for Thibodeau, while not veering too far from his own trodden trail. Call it future folk, but in 10 years we’ll be calling it timeless.
  3. Feb 24, 2014
    80
    The album is one full of highlights, with a sad beauty surrounding it that makes these songs immediately deeper, more connective, and more exciting than anything Death Vessel has brought us before.
  4. Feb 21, 2014
    80
    It remains, at its heart and in the best possible way, a very small record of considerable charm. Warmly recommended.
  5. Q Magazine
    Feb 19, 2014
    80
    Islands Intervals basks in a stately, other-worldly beauty akin to Sigur Ros and Icelandic folk artist Asgeir. [Mar 2014, p.112]
  6. Feb 19, 2014
    80
    As pretty much anyone will tell you, this sound hits more than it misses.
  7. Mar 3, 2014
    75
    This is passionate music, delivered with searing honesty by a man who didn’t mind disappearing from the conversation if that’s what it took to articulate what he was trying to say.
  8. 75
    The wondrous melodies sometimes come across as overly whimsical and fey, but Death Vessels create a communicative link from the human heart straight to the unknown realms of the cosmos.
  9. Magnet
    Mar 12, 2014
    70
    The voice and lyrics still confound but it's the music on this concise third LP that demands notice. [No. 107, p.55]
  10. Feb 19, 2014
    70
    Recorded in Reykjavík with Sigur Rós collaborator Alex Somers and Múm’s Samuli Kosminen, the frosty twinkles and skittery beats complement Rhode Island-based Thibadeau’s alt-folk leanings.
  11. Mojo
    Feb 21, 2014
    60
    While it's sometimes hard to shake the feeling one is listening to the soundtrack to some twee mobile commercial, it's harder still to deny the seductive charms of tracks like the twilit Ilsa Drown, the haunting Triangulated Heart, and the album's deftly magical closing song, Loom. [Mar 2014, p.94]
  12. Uncut
    Feb 19, 2014
    60
    The mix of cryptic lyrics and childlike whimsy wears a little thin over the long haul. [Mar 2014, p.75]
  13. Feb 25, 2014
    58
    His focus on atmosphere isn’t as successful as it should be, especially when the best songs are often the most straightforward.
  14. Feb 25, 2014
    50
    Island Intervals starts with songs that pit the intimate and the epic against each other, that shift tempo, texture, and scope in fascinating ways. But that set of complications can’t sustain itself.

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