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The  Foundling Image
Metascore
82

Universal acclaim - based on 7 Critic Reviews What's this?

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  • Summary: The autobiographical The Foundling is a concept album produced by Mike Timmons of the Cowboy Junkies.
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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 7
  2. Negative: 0 out of 7
  1. Uncut
    100
    Not since Lennon howled "Mother" have there been songs as naked and fraught as "Mama Here, Mama Gone" and "March 11 1962." [Jun 2010, p.88]
  2. There is no album in her catalog like The Foundling; it's a terrible beauty whose jewels gleam darkly, endlessly. Its songs hold truth for anyone who has either shared this experience or merely has the willingness to ask difficult questions with an open heart.
  3. The Foundling isn't a lot of fun, but it tells a very sad story with bleak eloquence.
  4. Mojo
    80
    Whatever you're doing, I guarantee you'll stop and listen to every word. [Jun 2010, p.102]
  5. Mary Gauthier is a natural-born yarn-spinner, and her latest album--an autobiographical account of childhood abandonment and failed reconciliation--is quintessential Gauthier: tender and pained, yet ultimately harmonious.
  6. The result is a bravely thoughtful mood piece, dominated by the half-spoken March 11, 1962, which chronicles her agonising phone call with her birth mother, who refused to meet her.
  7. Dec 13, 2010
    60
    The Foundling is certainly Gauthier's least showy album, which is saying something. It's also a notch or two down from her best, due to a handful of songs (mostly in the album's latter third) that aim for Gauthier's typically hard, simple honesty and instead land in the territory of gloomy repetition of aches and pains one would expect from this type of project.
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