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Nov 7, 201180It's a quietly satisfying album with a determined fragility that makes it all the more moving.
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Nov 8, 201190It's a fitting conclusion to a near perfect album that finds an artist expanding his musical palate without sacrificing an ounce of himself in the process.
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Nov 7, 201187Parallax feels like a more complete work than any other Atlas Sound record, with the differences between the songs less distinct and everything flowing together more naturally.
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Dec 15, 201180Some tracks are more outre than others... but throughout his sustained, idiosyncratic vision is absorbing. [Dec. 2001 p. 123]
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Dec 12, 201160Dreamy, classic-sounding pop nuggets, sung by Cox with a wry, casual authority. [Jan 2011, p.79]
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Jan 12, 201280It's a record best consumed in a semi-recumbent position, in order to match the loping, laidback pace of the music and Cox's stoned, oak-aged vocals. [Dec. 2011 p. 99]
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Nov 8, 201170Cox values songwriting ahead of texture these days, and the effort is paying off.
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Nov 8, 201191It's a brilliant feat: to make a record about distance, Cox has written the most effortlessly approachable music of his career.
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Nov 2, 201190A sci-fi tint shifts the perspective from Atlas Sound's usual layered introspection: Inner space now has become outer space.
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Nov 2, 201170While too restrained overall to match the tie-dyed brilliance of Logos, Parallax's subtle charms demonstrate that Cox's musical id is still alive and kicking. [Oct 2011, p.96]
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Nov 3, 201180Moments of genuine marvel, each one craving its own flowery descriptives, come thick and fast.
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Nov 2, 201180This is easily the most satisfying and rewarding set of songs that Cox has written in any of his projects and it'll be a tough ask to top it.
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Nov 17, 201180There's always been an otherworldly quality to Bradford Cox's solo recordings as Atlas Sound, but on his third studio album it comes across with more unsettling clarity than ever.
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Nov 7, 201180Parallax is easily Atlas Sound's best-sounding album to date.
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Nov 8, 201180Thankfully, such peeks of inhibition are brief, and Cox spends far more time confidently beckoning us into the glorious world he's created. For the first time, this is a place where we're to be cohabitants, not merely invitees.
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Nov 10, 201160It's a slight little album about fascinations, and a product of them, too, which, whether you share those fascinations or find them boring, is perfectly fine.
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Nov 2, 201170Though it often finds him treading familiar ground, Parallax is the first record in which Cox fully embraces the role of a magical-realist storyteller, recounting dreamily desolate tales as much to himself as to his audience.
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Dec 8, 201180There are shades of classic 50s-style crooning in Cox's vocals, but his voice has a sublime spectral quality that adds a lingering disquiet.
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Nov 7, 201176Parallax is Cox's third proper album under the Atlas Sound moniker, possibly his best so far, and certainly the one that contains the band's most straight-laced pop to date.
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Nov 2, 201180Parallax being Cox's most coherent record to date, it's harder to spotlight individual tracks, but individual settings stand out.
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Nov 10, 201166Though it's fun, pretty, well-constructed, and hits the buttons, those very facets are in danger, in the absence of Cox's beautiful vulnerability, of becoming what this sound is all about.
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Nov 8, 201176With each Atlas Sound release, the sonic effects become more interwoven, intense and impressive, and truly no one else could be writing these songs the way Cox does.
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Nov 9, 201190What makes Parallax a fully realized album is, in contrast to its compact musicality, the expanses and voids Cox explores.
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Nov 9, 201190Cox sounds comfortable and confident, and has made the best solo album of his prolific career.
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Nov 11, 201180It sounds like a recipe for a dozen buzz bands this year, but Atlas Sound transcends the fads. Melodies shine through like faint stars through the window.
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Nov 28, 201180Its songs strum and muse, with Mr. Cox's instruments and voices often doubled and slightly staggered, to dizzying stereo effect.
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Nov 11, 201190There's always something a bit fresh to the way Cox decides to articulate his musical notions, and this album shows that regardless of the ways his influences and ideas phase around each other, the impressions he presents are among the most appealing to be found.
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Nov 9, 201163Yet even when relying less on atmospheric synths and playing with a full-band set up ("The Shakes"), Parallax misses early rock's tautness and grit.
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Nov 8, 201160Parallax, unrealised masterpiece or not, sounds like the man in his bedroom with a thousand songs to leave unexplained.
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Nov 10, 201177As his catalogue continues to accumulate faster than just about every other artist out there, you can feel him growing more confident in himself and the ideas he bases his music on. Parallax can't help but feel like a win for this cause because it symbolizes growth more than out-and-out excellence.
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Nov 9, 201170After the impulsive creativity of Logos, Parallax, by contrast, is a much more refined listen.
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Nov 15, 201180Gentle introspection--instead of the outright melancholy he often exudes--paired with sway-worthy melodies make Parallax the most listenable Atlas Sound album to date.
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Nov 17, 201184Parallax is one of the best albums I've had the pleasure of hearing all year.
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Nov 23, 201170Even though we get Cox at his most nakedly audible on Parallax, however, it still feels like he's putting on a show, or imitating someone else.