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While The Civil War isn't as exhilaratingly disorienting as A Chance to Cut Is a Chance to Cure, it's another triumph; history may repeat itself, but Matmos never does.
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If you're curious about the group but haven't taken a chance on them yet, this is the perfect album to start.
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Alternative PressEqually adept with paradiddles and software plugins, these digital-age surrealists have birthed a musical hybrid all their own. [Nov 2003, p.100]
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BlenderIt's not always successful. But the sheer audacity of taking computers to Camelot works splendidly in the pastoral beauty of "Y.T.T.E." [Oct 2003, p.124]
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It is a challenging and humorous album that works like a society brave and wise enough to allow dissent.
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Immediately more accessible than their last effort.
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MagnetThe Civil War uses familiar Matmos techniques to craft unfamiliar electronic music. [#61, p.103]
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MojoUsing jaunty jigs and marches, [Matmos] mishandle flutes, bagpipes, violins and God knows what else to illustrate the mid-1800s battlefield. [Oct 2003, p.111]
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Musically, it's by far their most rounded and satisfying album to date.
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OutburnThe superposition of these strange sound sources is at times shocking, obliquely tracing a history of American music. [#23, p.95]
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As a technical achievement and as a piece of pure sound, The Civil War is inarguably Matmos' best record.... [but] there's less of an emotional core here than on previous offerings.
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A beguiling marriage of the electronic and the organic that, while perhaps short on tunes per se, bristles with engagement.
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There seems to be some sort of attempt at fusion here, a line being drawn between modern times and the Civil War era. Maybe it's supposed to be some sort of political message, a statement on the divided times we live in. But if it is, that's never clear.
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Q MagazineThough Matmos are undoubtedly the Willie Wonkas of ear candy, just occasionally The Civil War gets too anal. [Oct 2003, p.109]
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Rolling StoneMatmos amble and shuffle toward a new interpretation of history. [11 Dec 2003, p.204]
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One of the few discs I've encountered that not only attempts to be something more than a simple album, but succeeds.
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The finest Matmos record to date.
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This time Matmos crafts a convincing sonic history project that works its digressions into something more probing and consistent.
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The WireIt's all been very 'civil,' but still no sign of that dang war. [#235, p.63]
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Still quietly bombastic and still occasionally in search of an author, the spacey, haunted music bounces from the ethereal to the grounded dirt that our shoes kick away on imagined dance floors.
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UncutLike 1999's The West, The Civil War negotiates a fragile entente between Americana and electronica, but does so on a bigger, constantly astonishing scale. [Oct 2003, p.122]
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Under The RadarThis sounds like what writers for a comedy skit trying to make fun of avant-garde music would come up with. [#5, p.114]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 2 out of 2
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Mixed: 0 out of 2
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Negative: 0 out of 2
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marioMar 29, 2005