• Record Label: Yep Roc
  • Release Date: Oct 3, 2006
Metascore
80

Generally favorable reviews - based on 19 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 19
  2. Negative: 0 out of 19
  1. Hitchcock has made a return to garage rock not heard since 1989's Queen Elvis.
  2. It’s a fine record -- one of his better in some time.
  3. It's that perfect balance of sadness, vitriol, and absurdity that makes Hitchcock (when he's on) such a legendary social commentator.
  4. Olé! Tarantula delivers the goods: jangly, addictive psychedelic pop of the type Hitchcock mastered with the Soft Boys and the Egyptians.
  5. If you like catchy guitar pop with imaginative lyrics, Olé! Tarantula deserves a spot on your shelves.
  6. Olé! Tarantula... is one of the eccentric singer-songwriter's best in years, mainly because it sounds almost exactly like something he would've recorded two decades ago.
  7. Olé! Tarantula isn't his best solo record, but it's in the top tier, and after all these years that's certainly something.
  8. Magnet
    80
    Terrifically jangling. [#73, p.99]
  9. Q Magazine
    70
    His most conventionally rocking album in aeons. [Nov 2006, p.143]
  10. It’s as warm and melodic as the Soft Boys’ Nextdoorland was brittle and jagged.
  11. Unfortunately, the magic of [the] first three songs is never captured again.
  12. Uncut
    80
    One of Hitchcock's very best. [Nov 2006, p.114]
  13. Spin
    80
    [He] gets back to the sweetly twisted folk rock that he does so well. [Nov 2006, p.100]
  14. Hitchcock has a knockout gift for Beatlesque melodicism, and the Venus 3 rev it up here with a beat-combo drive and star-shine twang that sound like Murmur in space.
  15. The best Hitchcock album of the new millennium: Less insistently jagged and catchy, but with a bit of sting wrapped in its more tasteful arrangements.
  16. Mojo
    70
    His most satisfying album in a decade. [Dec 2006, p.106]
  17. It’s the best batch of songs he’s had in a while.
  18. The quartet captures a harmonic pop mayhem they haven't approached individually with much consistency in the recent past.

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