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A laid-back and easy to digest album with no grand statements to absorb or deeper meanings to dig for, it's made up of simple songs recorded simply and sung sweetly.
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Nothing on the album is as catchy or as memorable as the Strokes' sharpest material, but several cuts sport a sweet Latin lilt, which helps distinguish the music from work by any number of similarly situated acts.
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FilterThis debut could've, should've and would've been more appropriate as a moody summer release for trips with the car windows down, but instead we're forced to keep 'em up as winter nags at our sleeves. [Holiday 2008, p.100]
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Despite initial misgivings, our reviewer found that Little Joy's album delivers an old fashioned pop feel with a little DIY indie sound.
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Little Joy's charmingly lazy songwriting makes no gesture at becoming anything beyond an excellent dinner-party soundtrack. But in these trying times for art and political life, such warm-hearted mood music will at least make your headaches go away.
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While the similarities to Morretti's other group are what make Little Joy so easy to digest, they are also what make it seem somewhat unremarkable.
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MojoLovely music, no agendas. [Dec 2008, p.102]
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A little joy goes a long way--a long way towards one of the more carefree albums you'll enjoy this autumn.
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Little Joy might not quite have built a castle in the sky, but they’ve constructed a cosy little corner in our hearts.
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Little Joy makes for a fine, self-contained little album.
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There are some really gorgeous moments here, as on sleepy waltz 'Don’t Watch Me Dancing' and beautiful lazy closer 'Evaporar,' but overall the album comes off as an incomplete and thrown-together hobby project.
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Little Joy is not going to stop the world or change your life, but it's one of the sweetest, most listenable, consistently enjoyable records of the season.
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Q MagazineIt makes a refreshing change from the studied cool of Moretti's paymasters. [Dec 2008, p.130]
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Like Vampire Weekend, it's indie rock getting its global groove on.
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It's a sunny album with low aspirations, which in this case is a compliment.
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Though sometimes courting sleepiness, the debut's barbershop harmonies, Hawaiian strumming, and lovesick melodies transform rock-club jadedness into an aesthetic fit for honeymoons, holidays, and other occasions where you savor small pleasures, even if they're quaintly recycled.
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Fab and singer Rodrigo Amarante (of Rio De Janeiro’s Los Hermanos) affect the heavy hearts of coastal lounge singers yet retain the resilience of city kids who can’t be beat. Although backup singer Binki Shaprio is too feathery to really make an impact, the sum of Little Joy’s sincere regret and wide-eyed optimism lend a bedroom intimacy to the group’s debut.
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Ambitions here, you feel, do not extend far beyond ‘a good time, all the time’-–it’s probably telling that the band name derives from a cocktail lounge on Sunset Boulevard-–but then, Moretti probably wouldn’t want it any other way.
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Under The RadarProducer Noah Georgeson makes all the right decisions in keeping the sound warm, relaxed, and analog to cleverly use the past to give listeners an easy entry point into these pleasant, deceptively simple recordings. [Year End 2008]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 40 out of 44
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Mixed: 0 out of 44
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Negative: 4 out of 44
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Oct 1, 2010
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Sep 29, 2010