- Critic score
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- By date
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Whatever spaces the arrangements leave enable the imagination to play as much of a role as the instrumentation.
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Alternative PressAll beautifully realized, the kind of album critics say they love and then file far, far away. [Jul 2003, p.113]
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The more Nastasia withdraws into her own world, the more attractive her music becomes.
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FilterHer countrified songs often begin as gothic lullabies, swallowed up in darkness and longing, as if the instruments themselves were suffering heartbreak. [#6, p.82]
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Usually quiet though never passive, these songs lurch by, crowning, crowing, being cowed.
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Albini captures a recording full of heart, a sound quiet and full, rough and clear.
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MojoThese intimate hushes and lilts would be remarkable even as instrumentals.... Yet it's Nastasia's voice--and the words that it sings--that really sucks the air out of the room. [July 2003, p.102]
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Where The Blackened Air sounded haunting, Run to Ruin sounds downright haunted, and, indeed, it's got moments filled with menace and chords written to make you feel uncomfortable.
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OutburnA beautiful album of uniqueness and unfailing spirit. [#23, p.96]
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The most striking improvement is her singing. She's a stronger vocalist, her almost-plain tone rising into higher registers, and her usual range has grown more earthily gorgeous. But more than anything, she demonstrates a new expressiveness.
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By exposing the production devices and disrupting easy identification, Albini and Nastasia force intellectual engagement rather than mere reflexive emotional connection.
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Q MagazineCuriously compelling for something so minimal, it's like nothing else around. [Jul 2003, p.110]
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What gives the album life, though, is Nastasia's airy, intimate voice.
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What keeps Nastasia from succumbing to grotesque melodrama is the razor-like incisiveness she brings to her lyrics.
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Nastasia's gaze is still directed inwards, obsessed with the vivid minute imagery of relationships and an increasing dark streak -- a still-blackening air.
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Nastasia’s pen has sharpened greatly since The Blackened Air. No more does she scratch out mental images and feelings into terse songs, but builds upon those images and experiences -- placing the listener in her worn, ragged shoes -- instead of in our Gucci’s, 20 feet away, behind a chained link fence.
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UncutSpare, beautiful, outstanding. [Jul 2003, p.128]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 5 out of 6
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Mixed: 1 out of 6
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Negative: 0 out of 6
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WayXOct 28, 2005Simultaneously heartbreaking and inspiring.
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zgApr 17, 2004beautiful although I find I listen ti the Blackened Air more-- have to be in the mood for Run to Ruin