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Mar 1, 2013On Flower Lane, Mondanile and the gang stepped out of the bedroom and into the studio, and the result is something just as sterile as every other song by Real Estate.
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Feb 13, 2013Sure, it's no masterpiece, but The Flower Lane represents Matthew Mondanile's most consistent record to date.
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Feb 12, 2013Every song, for better or worse, is constructed with its own identity in mind, and if nothing else, Mondanile commits to each and every one of these attempts at distinction.
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MagnetFeb 11, 2013This is particularly adept record-collector rock for the rest of us. [No. 95, p.54]
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Feb 11, 2013Its songwriting, production, and delivery harbor no risks, and therefore the album safely passes by its listeners without leaving anything but a want for something a little more lively.
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Feb 11, 2013For the most part, then, The Flower Lane is a glowing ember of a record that shares much of the spark of Mondanile’s “day job” band, but also a little of their occasional tendency toward stylistic appropriation over dedication to content and originality.
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Q MagazineFeb 8, 2013The Flower Lane is a collection of hazy but beautifully constructed songs. [Mar 2013, p.98]
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MojoFeb 6, 2013Crisp drum figures add punctuation, and a noodling sax help evoke a mood of traveling the city at night. [Mar 2013, p.91]
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Feb 4, 2013It just lacks in a hallmark of all prior Ducktails releases: imagination.
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Feb 1, 2013It is a surprisingly refreshing listen.
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Feb 1, 2013The Flower Lane is far from a failed endeavour, but something special has been lost in the graduation from bedroom to studio.
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Feb 1, 2013The album's shiny surfaces and tight musicianship subtly whisper "don't touch", preventing any serious emotional connection with the music.
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Jan 31, 2013New wave, soul and house beats make this his most genre-bending album yet.
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Jan 31, 2013From there on in, though, it's ploddingly lightweight.
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Jan 31, 2013It sounds like he's trying to sound less weird, when he doesn't seem to understand that this very weirdness is part of what made him so endearing as a solo artist in the first place.
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Jan 31, 2013The Flower Lane is an honest-to-god pop record.
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Jan 29, 2013The Flower Lane provides width for Mondanile to freely explore bluesier, spacier frontiers, and the fresh air to achieve a cohesive clarity that builds on the successful points of his previous efforts.
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Jan 29, 2013The record feels akin to 40 minutes of stoned stargazing in a college dorm room. And the kid down the hall has yet to add substance to the conversation.
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Jan 29, 2013The Flower Lane is a testament to Mondanile's growth as an artist that translates a prolonged history of potential into a complete and well-crafted work.
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Jan 29, 2013On The Flower Lane, Mondanile mostly sticks to what's familiar, but injects a healthy dose of finesse.
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Jan 29, 2013If you've got a unquenchable thirst for reverb-y guitar pop, The Flower Lane is a pleasant album worth a listen, but those looking for something more should probably look elsewhere.
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Jan 29, 2013The Flower Lane is arguably not as essential, nor quite as oddly memorable as previous collected Ducktails instalments, but it does appear to be a new phase of the band.
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Jan 29, 2013The relatively sumptuous presentation of The Flower Lane successfully separates it from the rest of Ducktails' discography. Unfortunately, a familiar emptiness remains.
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Jan 28, 2013The amount of growth is staggering, and moving from the hazy-headed territory of older Ducktails to songwriting this polished and still pulling it off speaks volumes for the purity of the project's development, as well as Mondanile's refreshed vision as an artist.
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Jan 28, 2013There's a modicum of standard Teenage-Fanclub-meets-Mekons indie jangle. Far more interesting, however, are the dreamy, dazed disco tunes.
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Jan 25, 2013The Flower Lane succeeds mostly because of Mondanile's dedication to purity.
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Jan 24, 2013The divide in styles is the problem: two is enough to prevent a clear personality shining through, but not enough to give it a sense of adventure.
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Jan 23, 2013It's not as challenging as previous Ducktails recordings, but a pleasant pop record nonetheless, and the band's most universally accessible yet.
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Jan 22, 2013While not breaking new sonic ground, the broad brush strokes of nostalgia rarely wilt.
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Jan 17, 2013He has created a work of insidious beauty: creeping, pervasive and better for it.
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Jan 17, 2013All designs are firmly fixed on a glorious technicolour gem, but it's fair to say results are mixed.
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UncutJan 17, 2013It's all well-crafted, but the end result can often sound like a slightly disjointed compilation album. [Feb 2013, p.70]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 13 out of 13
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Mixed: 0 out of 13
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Negative: 0 out of 13
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Jan 29, 2013