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Red is at its best when it mines the new wave/Europop of Level 42 and Ultravox, especially on the infectious 'Clarion,' but those moments are few and far between.
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Time and time again, this patchy album is dragged down by obscenely flashy production, a surfeit of ideas that conspire only to sabotage the songs themselves and writ large across it all, Fyfe Dangerfield's interminable, platitudinous emoting.
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MojoSometimes there's a danger that comes with being too damn clever, namely that the melodies at the heart of songs can suffer or a feeling of too much fiddling around. [Apr 2008, p.104]
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Red is more a poor parody of the genre than a booty shaker.
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All this Eighties-shaped over-production means Red suffers from the same problem as bedevils the BBC's 1981-set Ashes to Ashes: too much effort has gone into quirky nostalgic jiggery-pokery and not enough into credible plot.
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Guillemots cram themselves into awkward fits, and Dangerfield has to squeeze the hardest--whether he's tying himself to a straightforward ballad instead of clamoring for the rooftops, or standing up for a fight when he's so much more comfortable slipping into a dream.
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There's a minor detail to enjoy in almost every song on here, but the whole is average to the point of being physically sickening for anybody who fell in love with their magical debut.
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Guillemots hurl themselves enthusiastically in all directions at once, but rarely land on their feet; good ideas emerge occasionally, but are smothered at birth, and the band's obsession with taking a musical left turn every 30 seconds means they end up chasing their own tail.
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A huge disappointment.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 13 out of 22
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Mixed: 5 out of 22
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Negative: 4 out of 22
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May 14, 2012
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Riccardinho9Apr 15, 2008
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DerringerApr 11, 2008