- Record Label: Astralwerks
- Release Date: Jul 25, 2006
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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Q MagazineSteele may be in thrall to [Brian] Wilson and The Beatles, but his talent is precocious enough to give him his own very singluar voice. [Aug 2006, p.112]
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The album's most striking feature is its ability to avoid the musically obvious while still delivering golden pop melodies.
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UrbThe result is in the vein of popcraft performers Phoenix, Air and others who occupy a great deal of the Astralwerks roster. [Jul/Aug 2006, p.132]
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After a while shapes form and the structure of this masterpiece become clear - a wash of beautiful melodies and sumptuous chord changes that sit somewhere between George Harrison and Echo and the Bunnymen.
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BlenderHe specializes in layered harmonies, not deep lyrics. [Aug 2006, p.117]
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UncutYou can't help thinking that by ironing out their creases, The Sleepy Jackson have lost a little bit of their spark. [Aug 2006, p.111]
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MojoMulti-layered backing vocals and summery hooks tickle the spine with every listen. [Aug 2006, p.90]
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The Sleepy Jackson are an oddball treat for those who want their pop music to color outside the lines.
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The album is impressive, especially in small doses or when Steele reigns it in a bit, as on the pretty, bossa-nova tinged "Miles Away." As a whole, it's a sometimes exhausting listen.
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Underneath the big production, Steele writes some great melodies, and that’s the real reason that his sometimes dubious experimentations pay off.
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Essentially, it's "Lovers" part two.
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Spin[Steele's] way-back machine is aimed precisely for 1985. [Aug 2006, p.85]
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It's familiar, but ultimately too inspired to be derivative.
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There's a theatricality that's akin to the Decemberists, but the sweet disco-bobs of "I Understand What You Want But I Just Don't Agree" and "Play a Little Bit for Love" suggest a more outwardly grandness, a notion supported by the Baz Luhrmann-aping album cover.
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The Sleepy Jackson have produced another album chock full of sparkling moments.
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Delicately layered with ornate instrumentation and hushed vocals, perfectly poised between joyful and damaged, 'Personality' sees off the previously over-obvious obsession with America's dizzy expanses and endless horizons, instead offering something infinitely more natural and personal.
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If only Steele could keep a lineup together for more than a few months and follow through with his original plan of working with producer Dave Fridmann, Personality might've risen above the level of ho-hum patchwork pastiche.
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New Musical Express (NME)Even with the rich array of sounds, every track has an impressive immediacy and it's that balance that makes 'Personality...' so uplifting. [22 Jul 2006, p.39]
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Alternative PressWhile Personality is all masterful and ambitious, nothing really sticks in the end. [Sep 2006, p.232]
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Under The RadarOn Personality, Steele faces his internal and spiritual conflicts through a soundtrack recorded for the Technicolor screenplay constantly drifting in his head. [Summer 2006]
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Paste MagazineOccasionally his voice gets lost in the cathedral of sound, but Personality remains a joyful noise. [Sep 2006, p.78]
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Just a little less inscrutability, and this could have been a real contender.
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Personality is an immediate, alluring, and frequently arresting song cycle that plays to Steele's core strengths-- his dreamily effeminate voice and melancholic melodies-- while wisely abandoning Lovers' half-hearted attempts at mod garage-rock and electro-disco.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 12 out of 13
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Mixed: 1 out of 13
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Negative: 0 out of 13
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GuyJan 4, 2007One great surprise.
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stephencOct 16, 2006
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DecepticonPomSep 27, 2006Haphazard compared to the faultless debut album.