Tears Of The Valedictorian

One listen to Tears of the Valedictorian confirms the group's uncanny talent for creating manic, beautiful and upsetting songs that seem to exist wholly for themselves.

Tears of the Valedictorian is easily one of the best records of the year.

Tears of the Valedictorian is Frog Eyes' first substantial advance since 2003's The Golden River.

This album sees Frog Eyes as a band fully realized. [#17, p.85]

Tears of the Valedictorian works on so many levels. It adds another hefty, colorful cornea to the Frog Eyes spazz gallery, for one. It also takes a step toward streamlining their sound, which may, in the wrong hands, be considered a faulty premise, but let me assure you, it isn’t; this recording is crystal-clear but far from diamond-decadence.

Tears Of The Valedictorian is the band in top form, with Spencer Krug binding meandering tales of post-postmodernist artistic anxiety with wiry keyboards that echo Mercer's morphing vocals.

It is simultaneously the most resplendent, accomplished record the band has made, with all kinds of songs... that retain the worst, most self-indulgent aspects of one of underground rock’s most consistently imperfect bands.

Tears Of The Valedictorian may be Frog Eyes' most accessible album, if only because Mercer sings as much as he yelps, and pulls back the reins on the band's thrashy, bashy art-folk long enough to let some melody creep in.

Valedictorian frequently collides with bracing beauty, sometimes of the of the conventional sort, but more often like nothing else before it. [May 2007, p.85]

Lovers of schizo-rock will have plenty to revel in.