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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.
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Paste MagazineWhatever 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]
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The new musicians forgo the gauzy, playful dilettantism of Euphemystic in favor of expansive pop marathons.
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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.
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An ambitious, sprawling sophomore effort that doesn't quite succeed in setting the group apart from their many influences.
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Under The RadarThe biggest problem with Key is that Knapp is just not an interesting songwriter. [#8, p.112]
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Alternative PressAlbum, boring. [Dec 2004, p.150]
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BlenderDespite 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]
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Behold 2004, your kings of yawn-rock, Son, Ambulance.