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In a career full of perfect miniatures, Mountain Battles might actually be the Deals' best. It's certainly their most even-flowing.
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It is true that many may balk at the lack of outright pop or that some of the songs are too sparse or that Steve Albini’s production is bottom-heavy, muddy, and lo-fi but there’s just too much to love on this album for any of that to get in the way.
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MojoHere are 13 reasons why we don't need another Pixies record. [Apr 2008, p.101]
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The Breeders can still crank out straightforward rock songs, but iy's the creepier stuff that gets under your skin and stays there. [Apr 2008, p.104]
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The album’s sequencing is impeccable, as the band segues into airy atmospherics for 'Night of Joy' and 'We’re Gonna Rise,' the album’s most tender, melancholy and meditative tracks.
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Such is the balm-like propensity of her singing that the listener experiences it as a physical sensation as much as a sound. Yet as these 13 brief but perfectly formed songs rush by in 35 hectic, blissful minutes, the overall effect is galvanising rather than palliative.
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Mountain Battles is marginally more polished than "Title TK" but it still sounds as if it was recorded in one take in Steve Albini’s toilet. A good thing, as it turns out. The intimacy of is what makes it precious.
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Mountain Battles is a wonderful, trippy record that's full of invention and Deal sister sass.
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With material as good as this, we can bear to do without Pixies for a while yet.
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The latest batch of tunes definitely includes some keepers.
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Overall, Mountain Battles shines in its aim to surprise the listener at every turn.
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Deal's bass is one of the most comforting sounds in rock, her tender, bruised-violet voice being another, and hearing her again is like meeting a good friend after a long hiatus.
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This album is an embarrassment of riches.
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Alt-rock guru Steve Albini is back at the helm and once again proves the ideal midwife for the Breeders' fiercely independent vision.
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And, though the album covers a lot of territory--13 songs in 36 minutes!--it doesn't feel scattered; scattered implies no purpose, but Mountain Battles' songs land, eventually, exactly where they need to.
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In many ways, what follows is the perfect distillation of the Breeders' catalog (and Deal's attendant side project, the Amps).
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Mountain Battles is both a joyfully lived-in and boundary-free album.
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Like their three previous records, Mountain Battles is a record to return to again and again, like an old and dear friend who can still somehow surprise you.
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This is Kim Deal’s version of scuffed-up shoegazer rock, albeit with a shit-eating grin shining off the moonlight.
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MagnetMountain Battles turns longtime engineer Steve Albini's bare-bones studio work into a virtue and spins Deal's ADD-afflicted worldview into gold. [Summer 2008, p.97]
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If "Title TK" was a tentative first step back into the public eye, Mountain Battles finds Kim and Kelley proudly venerating the Breeders' battle-scarred history and bull-headed perseverance.
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FilterKim and Kelly Deal have delivered their strangest record to date. [Winter 2008, p.91]
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Taken as a whole, this endearingly strange collection should force casual-listeners to appreciate the importance of the album as a convoluted, contrary and eternally charismatic art form, which can still be defended by even the most work-shy of songsmiths.
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Steve Albini (Nirvana, PJ Harvey), among other producers, keeps things raw; indeed, the record's primitive art punk sometimes echoes Nirvana.
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Mountain Battles gets less right than Pod or Last Splash did, but hits the target more often than Pacer or Title TK. Either way, it's probably a bit better than you expect.
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As it is, it’s just satisfying. It’s ironic, then, that the record comes with such a momentous title, because really, it’s a gentle personal triumph.
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It's an interesting mix, but unfortunately, the album is never as much fun to listen to as it probably was for the Deal sisters to make.
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The result is slight but often gorgeous. [Apr 2008, p.77]
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It’s not as nebulous as their last album--and it doesn’t deliver the melodic thrills of Last Splash--but Mountain Battles has personality, spirit, warmth and tenderness in abundance.
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With the Pixies re-run now seemingly over, it's good to hear the "other Deal" project back in full effect.
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The end product, however, is an album easy to admire yet tough to love.
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Q MagazineEven when the spare, fractured arrangements seem a bit aimless, the girlish harmonies keep on charming. [May 2008, p.126]
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While Deal's music has often been enhanced by its try-anything roughness, here, she sounds like she's just hoping something will stick.
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Deal; her sister, Kelley, on guitar; drummer Jose Medeles; and bassist Mando Lopez return from 2002's "Title TK" in a mellow tone.
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The record comes off like punk-rock outtakes for the heavily narcotized.
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Under The RadarDespite its evocative title of raw sinewy snarl, Mountain Battles is, sadly, a narcoleptic disappointment. [Spring 2008, p.74]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 11 out of 13
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Mixed: 2 out of 13
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Negative: 0 out of 13
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MichaelE.Apr 15, 2008
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SteveSApr 12, 2008
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ChristopherS.Apr 9, 2008