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Original Colors Image
Metascore
69

Generally favorable reviews - based on 15 Critic Reviews What's this?

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  • Summary: The alternative rock duo's third studio album was recorded at its Los Angeles home.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 9 out of 15
  2. Negative: 0 out of 15
  1. Oct 7, 2011
    80
    On the beautifully airy Original Colors, the ambient pair seem weary of making a good impression.
  2. Oct 7, 2011
    80
    High Places' third album finds the duo of Rob Barber and Mary Pearson all the more comfortable and assured in a realm of moody electronic pop for the 21st century, at once drawing on familiar roots and putting distinct, enjoyable spins on the results.
  3. Uncut
    Nov 23, 2011
    80
    Primal yet precise, these obliques beats and blocky grooves loom out of the lush ambient foliage like the crown of a Mayan temple in the Yucatan jungle. [Dec 2011, p.87]
  4. Oct 11, 2011
    70
    So while High Places have neatly avoided getting stuck in a rut on Original Colors, daring to reinvent themselves into a more motion-friendly group, fans of their first couple of albums should still find the overall mood sufficiently low-key to provide easy access.
  5. 63
    High Places v. Mankind, took just criticism for being a run-of-the-mill indie record with no charisma, Original Colors is a more than respectable rebound.
  6. Nov 2, 2011
    60
    There is also a notably darker, murkier imperative at the heart of Original Colours and the results are sometimes a little introverted.
  7. Oct 13, 2011
    40
    Ultimately, High Places have succeeded in doing something that, on paper, seems an impossibility: they've managed to make an album that is undeniably focused around rhythms sound like an absolute slog.

See all 15 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of
  2. Mixed: 0 out of
  3. Negative: 0 out of