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The Airborne Toxic Event - The Airborne Toxic Event
Metascore
66 out of 100

Generally favorable reviews - based on 11 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 11
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 11
  3. Negative: 1 out of 11
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  1. Entertainment Weekly
    83
    You'll find an occasionally derivative album that's enthralled with guitar noise, overflowing with lit-mag lyrics, and unafraid to be ugly. It's also sewn through with an endearing passion that screams of potential.
  2. Uncut
    80
    TATE's debut touches on Stooges garage rock, sultry blues, Strokesian pop, all swaddled in opulent Americana. [Mar 2009, p.87]
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  3. Q Magazine
    80
    'Midnight's' gut-wrenching sight of an ex not leaving a party alone is a case in point, but any of one of these 10 tracks is equally illuustrative. [Mar 2009, p.93]
    All this publication's reviews
  4. The Guardian
    80
    The LA sextet's debut album is packed with widescreen rock of very high quality – does it matter if every single element of it has been heard elsewhere?
  5. Prefix Magazine
    80
    The Airborne Toxic Event's gift is two-fold -- they manage to take the little things, the day-to-day ellipses of modern romance and elevate them to a level of art.
  6. Drowned In Sound
    70
    As debut albums go--and while compiling the record the band disposed of nearly thirty songs--this is a fine, upstanding introduction to the tormented world of The Airborne Toxic Event and one that vivaciously whets the appetite in anticipation of what might come next.
  7. PopMatters
    70
    The Airborne Toxic Event is the sound of a band that's not exactly sure what it wants to sound like, trying on different styles and approaches for size. It so happens that, more often that not, those approaches make for a good fit.
  8. Blender
    60
    On the album's best moments, he pours his hopeless longing into sweaty, inebriated celebrations of love's boundless optimism.
  9. The A.V. Club
    58
    It's all perfectly competent and smoothly produced, and it's polished within an inch of its life. It's also lifeless.
  10. Dot Music
    50
    Lower your expectations a level and there's a decent enough rock album; tight, stylistically roughed-up and actually sounding much more like The Libertines than you expect.
  11. Pitchfork
    16
    The Airborne Toxic Event is an album that's almost insulting in its unoriginality.
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User Reviews

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User Score
7.3 out of 10

Generally favorable reviews- based on 38 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 15 out of 20
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 20
  3. Negative: 4 out of 20
  1. Vampire25
    5
    The Airborne Toxic Event's self titled debut album sounds way too much like any other band. It sounded like Interpol, The Strokes, and other similar bands which would usually be fine with me, but for this album, it just sounds plain unoriginal. The album isn't TERRIBLE, but it just sounds like a knockoff of other really good bands. All In All, It has a few good ideas, some of the lyrics are worth noting, and Mikel Jollett's vocals sounded really good at times, but this debut album has nothing to show for it. No sense of creativity or originality. I still have hope for The Airborne Toxic Event and I do await a second album only if it's a lot different from this one. C… Full Review »
  2. leigh
    9
    Just... Yes. I adore the entire album. Gasoline and Missy are my favorite tracks. I enjoy the mix of melancholy in some tracks and energy in the other. The lyrics were surprisingly good, too! Can't wait for the new album!… Full Review »
  3. DylanA-C
    8
    TATE is a strong opening album, with catchy and inventive songs, interesting lyrics, and strong musicianship. It really bothers me how Pitchfork seems to be doing its best to drag this album down. I can understand all the other reviews on the site, but Pitchfork's...ah, well... 1. They did NOT steal the drumbeat from Arcade Fire's Neighborhood #1. Frankly, as much as I love Arcade Fire, that song embodies one fo the absolute most generic drum beat possible. Is Arcade Fire stealing from We Are Scientist, then? Are they stealing from the Arctic Monkeys? As a jazz drummer, I was so glad to hear some decent drumming in TATE...not notable for innovation, but not generic, and with enough improvisation to keep me interested and impressed. 2. Emotional vocals are hardly unique to Bright Eyes. 3. Neither is a distorted microphon unique to the Strokes. 4. Accusing TATE of being inspired by success rather than musical talent is based on nothing but angry speculation (and possibly displeasure at TATE's um...success) I could go on, but as all music inevitably borrows from others, I find it odd that Pitchfork accuses of TATE of not giving birth to their own sound...when, by combining certain characteristics of the bands that they "ripped off," they indeed to create their own sound. It is inspiration, not theft. I don't enjoy having to spend a review responding to another, but Pitchfork should not so easily asign a damning value to a decent up-and-coming band.… Full Review »
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