Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
May 6, 2013At only 28 minutes long, Lysandre is easily digestible in a single sitting, but that really just embellishes its true purpose--to temporarily whet our appetites till all those other Christopher Owens solo records appear.
-
Mar 7, 2013The 33-year-old Owens has funneled his usual druggy, droogy Flaming-Lips-stuffed-into-Beach-House tone into something cohesive and made it into Cali-folk popping and bright.
-
Feb 11, 2013For the most part Lysandre is a masterful exhibition of how to execute and relay truth and emotion.
-
Q MagazineJan 24, 2013For the most part, this is a pastoral, frequently beautiful folk record, spiked with the odd unexpected diversion. [Feb 2013, p.112]
-
Jan 24, 2013Lysandre frequently charms. It is a primarily low-key statement, but does enough to suggest that Owens' future post-Girls may be very promising.
-
MojoJan 18, 2013On Lysandre, his vision feels more expansive. [Feb 2013, p.88]
-
Jan 15, 2013Each song feels fully formed yet tells a unique and important chapter in this period of Owens' life.
-
Jan 15, 2013Lysandre is a fresh start for a writer with a fine ear for the way happiness and heartbreak intertwine.
-
Jan 15, 2013Bonds and connections that seemed soul-deep and vital tend to dissipate with nothing more than time and distance, but before Owens can grapple with that truth in Lysandre, it's already slipped away.
-
Jan 15, 2013Lysandre, his solo debut, is a slip of an album, 11 songs under 30 minutes, and it's a fascinating curveball.
-
Jan 15, 2013As a solo debut, Lysandre is a self-indulgent effort that succeeds in spite of itself; it also signals an artist shaking off the shackles of the past and embracing a wider range of sounds and ideas.
-
Jan 15, 2013These three tracks ["A Broken Heart," "Lysandre," and "Everywhere You Knew"] function as everything Owens could have dreamed this first solo effort to be. But the rest of the album, which aims for similar points of emotional cohesiveness, but due to some ham-fisted instrumental choices, the message can become muddled.
-
Jan 15, 2013Even with the thematic ties running throughout Lysandre, it isn't overly ambitious: The 11 songs clock in at less than half an hour, and the main musical theme that shows up in nearly every one of them becomes a wearisome prop by the end of the album.
-
Jan 15, 2013A narrative concept album that runs a mere 29 minutes and is both more musically ornate yet somehow also slighter than anything Girls attempted, a deeply personal work whose arch presentation serves to keep you at an emotional distance.
-
Jan 15, 2013It's easy-listening music for deeply uneasy times.
-
Jan 14, 2013Lysandre justifies its own existence by virtue of its own wide eyed wonder, its own vulnerability, and its giving sense of heart.
-
Jan 14, 2013Except for all the bits about getting high, and the bit about begging his best friend not to kill him, Lysandre is a composite love story as old as the hills, but this retelling is surprisingly refreshing.
-
Jan 10, 2013The result--a series of dreamlike recollections of one turbulent summer--is mostly irresistible.
-
Jan 9, 2013That Christopher Owens' songs are so simultaneously vivid, immersive and indulgent is one thing, that he has crafted the character to execute them so expertly is quite another.
-
Jan 8, 2013Lysandre inevitably feels a bit skimpy. It's still an unnervingly tuneful warm-up: freed from his hipster shackles, Owens is harnessing the power of the incredibly uncool--and he's all the cooler for it.
-
UncutJan 7, 2013He's continuing his romp through totally unfashionable styles, armed with his endearingly earnest voice and a lot of flutes. [Feb 2013, p.77]
-
Alternative PressJan 7, 2013Lysandre proves the chameleonic Owen can say the same thing over and over and never run out of inspiration. [Feb 2013, p.92]
-
Jan 7, 2013The man's bid for a place in the pantheon of gifted and fascinating greats is still on course.