Key - Son, Ambulance
Metascore
60 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 9 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 9
  2. Negative: 1 out of 9
  1. Whatever Key lacks in ramshackle charm, it compensates for with deft musicianship and winds up just as achingly fine as the band's sepia-toned debut. [#13, p.119]
  2. Key ultimately demands direct attention; while some songs seem to call out for the openness of a long car ride, this is a headphone masterpiece.
  3. The new musicians forgo the gauzy, playful dilettantism of Euphemystic in favor of expansive pop marathons.
  4. Key drifts into blandness over the course of its leisurely 55 minutes, but the record holds together by sketching America's heartland as a place where the outlaw edge of culture winds up after it's chased out of the city.
  5. An ambitious, sprawling sophomore effort that doesn't quite succeed in setting the group apart from their many influences.
  6. The biggest problem with Key is that Knapp is just not an interesting songwriter. [#8, p.112]
  7. 40
    Despite their surface similarities, Knapp's wide-eyed songs lack the unnerving distinction and eccentricity that are [Conor] Oberst's stock-in-trade. [Nov 2004, p.142]
  8. Album, boring. [Dec 2004, p.150]
  9. Behold 2004, your kings of yawn-rock, Son, Ambulance.