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Dec 5, 2012The world Cale has created here is conflicted and weird, but it's also fascinating.
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MojoDec 5, 2012The result is as good as anything Cale's delivered in years. [Nov 2012, p.91]
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Q MagazineDec 5, 2012His first album in seven years is vigorously diverse. [Nov 2012, p.90]
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UncutDec 5, 2012It all sounds closer to 1990s David Bowie studio funk than the man who once went commando with the likes of Sabotage/Live and Music For A New Society. [Nov 2012, p.71]
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Dec 5, 2012It's hard to pretend this is entirely cutting-edge stuff, but the 70-year-old shows no sign of softening, his production rich without bowing to commercialism, his compositions full of unexpected twists and aggression.
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Dec 5, 2012Shifty Adventures in Nookie Wood achieves a balance between uncompromising, avant-garde sound experimentation and pure melodic beauty that is among the most seamless and convincing you will hear all year.
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Dec 5, 2012It's an album that combines the 70-year-old's experience with the glee of a small child.
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Dec 5, 2012"I Wanna Talk 2 U", [is] just one highlight of an album which manages to be sonically inventive, dense and complex and melodically accessible.
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Dec 5, 2012Nookie Wood finds him in rude creative health; a gruff, Pan-like affirmation of continuing musical restlessness.
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Dec 5, 2012What Cale has done here is not only intriguing in its own right, it also manages to beat artists half the maker's age and younger at their own game and also has more to say.
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Dec 5, 2012New Adventures in Nookie Wood is brimming with ideas, and the album's chopped-up, heavy aesthetic knits them together in a way that means that not one ever feels misdirected.
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The WireDec 5, 2012Cale is producing involving, forward-moving music that still capable of catching you unawares. [Oct 2012, p.58]
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Dec 5, 2012Shifty Adventures in Nookie Wood sounds like Echo & the Bunnymen or Simple Minds turned loose with an army of 808s and AutoTuners, and when left unwarped by gauzy effects, Cale's vocal delivery is alternately as morose as Joy Division's and as sneering as Nick Cave's.
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Dec 5, 2012It's an immediate, utterly engrossing collection of hook-laden, distinctly modern rock songs, as vibrant as anything being turned out by the hipster kids.
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Dec 5, 2012The freshness of Shifty Adventures owes to his love of surprise and subversion.
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Dec 5, 2012With his new album, Shifty Adventures In Nookie Wood, Cale is once again juggling gut-punches and brain-freezes.
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Dec 5, 2012An enjoyable offering from a genuine treasure.
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Dec 5, 2012The steady pace of mid-tempo tracks might deter some listeners; although there are tinges of mischief, a sudden shift in pace would certainty elevate the listen.
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Dec 5, 2012John Cale's latest is a visceral, thrilling ride, capable of soundtracking any seedy disco on the outskirts of Nookie Wood.
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Dec 5, 2012Silly, savage, and willfully schizophrenic, Nookie Wood is at its best when its creator is channeling his more pastoral works.
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Dec 5, 2012This is far from conventional rock, but it's rock as viewed through Cale's dark shades and skewed outsider sensibility and as such, one of his more successful and consistent outings.
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Dec 5, 2012At times the effects are superb.... However, there are wobbles with the quality control.
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Dec 5, 2012For five songs, it's the best album ever, rattling along on post-punk guitar flourishes and Cale's auto-tuned vocal. After that it descends into an enjoyable weirdathon.
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Dec 5, 2012Shifty Adventures feels more like a collection of gadgets than songs.
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Dec 5, 2012His songs may reference antiquities like Ernest Hemingway, but the drum programmes, autotuned vocals and synth sequences are more modern than the usual country-rock favoured by septuagenarian troubadours.
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Dec 5, 2012All of its 12 tracks are reckless trials in largely unrelated genres, and most end up errors.
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Dec 5, 2012For a man who long ago turned the fear of change into his best friend, it's disappointing how uneven his explorations are in Nookie Wood.
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Dec 5, 2012Too often the way of the beat ends up a distraction rather than a fully incorporated addition to good songwriting.
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Dec 5, 2012While Nookie Wood suggests lusty concupiscence, naughtiness, and vim, these conjurations are foundered by big production and mastering straight out of 90s alt-pop radio