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Oct 25, 201290Wolf is as honest and, in a greater sense, as generous a songwriter as we have, and Mumps, Etc. may be his finest gift yet.
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Oct 9, 201228An often unlistenable album from WHY?, a group whose music is often excellent.
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Oct 23, 201240While cleverly mocking late-20s thwarted ambitions and McJob drudgery, Wolf offers little by way of an alternative, his lyrics ultimately as hollow as the cynical Generation X irony of the '90s. [Nov 2012, p.112]
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Oct 9, 201267Metaphors are short-lived and abstract, and Wolf spends lots of time philosophizing or generalizing.
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Oct 8, 201270It critically casts an eye over Wolf's public persona.
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Oct 5, 201265Mumps, etc. misses out on the engrossing atmospheres the last two albums had, and its best track, "Sod in the Seed," is a holdover from the recent EP of the same name, but there's enough here to more than make up for their last few years of radio silence.
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Oct 5, 201290Mumps, etc. simultaneously feels like a fresh start and consolidation for the band; it encapsulates what makes them so unique while subtly expanding and pushing forward their sound, and as such must be viewed a real triumph.
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Oct 16, 201260There's enough humour in the words and inventiveness in the production to keep coming back to these songs, though you can only hope Wolf will sound a little less broken the next time around.
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Oct 15, 201260All the Why? hallmarks are there, but the album just lacks effusive energy or emotional rawness needed to bring it all to life.
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Oct 5, 201270Mumps, Etc. is an assured, thematically united set.
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Oct 17, 201262It's disjointed, but somehow held together by Wolf's honestly and sometimes-brilliant turns of phrases.
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Oct 9, 201260If Alopecia was the perfect fit sonically and thematically for Wolf's verbal diarrhea, then Mumps comes off more like a scattered greatest hits record than an album with a preconceived vision.
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Oct 23, 201270For many reasons it is confused, self-absorbed, remarkably gauche. It is so often an intentionally uncomfortable thing to listen to... [yet] intriguing.
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Oct 30, 201240It's a process, not a product--frustratingly inarticulate when it matters most.
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Oct 10, 201280Crisper and cleaner than any previous Why? musing, Mumps Etc. is chamber hop for people who buy every remastered reissue of Pet Sounds. [No. 92, p.60]
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Oct 24, 201237Lifeless and boring.
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Oct 5, 201278Mumps takes a little while to sink in in a different way to previous albums.
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Oct 8, 201280WHY? have always been an acquired taste but anyone with a shred of interest in Yoni Wolf's idiosyncratic talents will find much to savour on a very impressive return.
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Oct 17, 201270While we often expect clarity of thought from our favourite lyricists, Wolf's admission that he doesn't hold all the answers makes these songs all the more relatable and poignant.