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Aug 19, 2016By not shying away from writing about messy relationships, hard truths, and personal failings, she’s created an album with incredible emotional and lyrical resonance.
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Sep 1, 2016Real’s stew of unabashed honesty, townie bar arena rock muscle, and uncomplicated discussion of life’s and love’s complications feels just like home. It doesn’t get any realer than that.
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Aug 19, 2016Somewhere Else should make a point of giving Real a listen--at her best, she's quite simply as good and as brave a singer and songwriter as anyone working today, and Real finds her at the top of her game.
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Aug 18, 2016Loveless continues to manifest a remarkable combination of bruised vulnerability and desperate longing, alongside a tough, self-deprecating resilience, but there’s more of the former and less of the latter this time.
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Aug 18, 2016The aptly titled Real gives listeners a satisfying and enlightening further glimpse into her world, one that will surely be expanding with thoughts waiting to be put to song for years to come.
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Aug 17, 2016Bringing bouts of surf twang, no-wave tangles, and chopped-up power chords, the record blurs boundaries of genre, its eighth notes alternately swung and then made straight again. The band (Todd May, Ben Lamb, Jay Gasper, George Hondroulis, Andy Harrison) shines across the changes in support of Loveless’s powerful voice.
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Aug 17, 2016Real, Loveless's confident and poppy fourth album, builds on what Loveless and her band were doing on 2014's grittier Somewhere Else.
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MagnetAug 11, 2016Her witty wordplay and ironic humor offers a bit of relief from heartache and confusion that colors the record, but it's those shattered emotions that are the most impressive. [No. 134, p.57]
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UncutAug 10, 2016Loveless' songwriting on Real is sharp, economical and wickedly funny. [Sep 2016, p.77]
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Aug 10, 2016The acoustic Clumps strips down for a particularly moving two minutes, but for the most part, Loveless commits to the stunning sonic evolution. Embrace it.
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Aug 10, 2016Loveless manages to strike a similarly compelling balance of grit and pop throughout the rest of Real.
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Sep 23, 2016It sounds like Loveless has found herself, somewhere between traditional country and '70s pop rock, delivered with salacious grit and emotional gravity to spare.
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Aug 10, 2016The music is more refined than previous Loveless albums. With the exception of the sonic roar in "Same to You," the pleasures on Real turn on instrumental subtleties.
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Oct 7, 2016The sassy European and fraught, fatalistic Bilbao also have their moments, though there’s too great a reliance on mid-tempo numbers and the proto-punk aggression hinted at sadly fails to materialise.
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Aug 15, 2016Melodies take longer to reveal themselves and choruses don’t have the natural hooks Loveless has crafted before. Which just means you’ll need to spend additional time exploring the songs, mulling them over, absorbing the lyrics and letting their more elusive charms sink in.
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Sep 1, 2016Her weary disposition begs for songs that are stripped down and reduced to their component parts--songs that don't fuss around. That's the problem--the fussing, the instinct to add more. It sounds like she's reaching for something, but she doesn't know what it is or where to find it.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 9 out of 14
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Mixed: 2 out of 14
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Negative: 3 out of 14
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Aug 22, 2016
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Aug 19, 2016
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Aug 19, 2016