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Jan 19, 2018Austere without the compulsion of self-restraint and experimental without the drag of formlessness, The House confirms Porches’ primacy as indie-dance mavens.
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Jan 22, 2018On The House, Maine is vulnerable, honest and strong--he soars on this, his best album yet.
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Jan 22, 2018Imbued with a melancholy warmth, The House is accomplished, jaded, romantic, and intricate in its straightforwardness. It’s synthpop you sink into, that you dance alone to--most of all, it’s synthpop that leaves you feeling nourished.
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Jan 19, 2018A collection of tangible emotional snapshots, brief but telling entries in a musical journal.
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Jan 16, 2018‘Find Me’ and ‘Anymore’ channel the danceable charm of ‘Pool’, while the powerful swell of ‘Now The Water’ proves as immersive as its title suggests. By and large, though, The House is marked by a hands-off recording style that dials back on the fine-tuned production of its predecessor.
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Jan 16, 2018Maine's ability to draw out peculiar emotions and thoughtfully pairing them with euphoric sounds in a deliberate way makes The House a natural and more than satisfying sequel to Pool.
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Jan 16, 2018The House is an album of rare balance and beauty, managing to evoke hefty emotions and ideas while still feeling slight and ephemeral, never forgetting that this could all slip through your fingers at any moment.
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Jan 17, 2018The House feels like a transitional work, one saddled with stylistic experiments and themes of rebirth, renewal, self-discovery and so on. Perhaps that bodes well for Porches Album #4, whenever it arrives. And perhaps it will tie up some of The House’s loose ends.
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Jan 22, 2018Though longtime fans of Porches--or any of Maine’s work--will never get another Pool, The House makes for a fulfilling, if not occasionally excellent listen and addition to Maine’s discography.
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Jan 19, 2018The House reinforces Porches' standing as a distinctive voice in a crowded field of wistful D.I.Y. indie electronica.
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Jan 19, 2018The House has moments where it seems like Maine might have said everything he’s capable of saying with Porches. However, there are enough positives, particularly around the end, to feel like he’s not bled his creativity dry.
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UncutJan 16, 2018Lively but also introspective, The House ultimately explores growth through personal reflection, while nestled in a cocoon of immersive electronics. [Feb 2018, p.30]
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Jan 16, 2018You’ll discover plenty of laconic beauty wherever you drop into The House, and it glimmers with the songful club music that made its predecessor great for getting ready to go out. But a profusion of digital-pastoral vocal settings makes it unlikely to displace Pool from constant shuffle rotation.
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Jan 22, 2018Punctuating The House’s actual songs are occasionally baffling interludes (one, “Åkeren,” is sung entirely in Norwegian, a first for Porches), which play more like unfinished sketches than intentional moments of quiet.
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Jan 19, 2018An album whose messages can be watery, but Porches’ tendency to swim upstream is satisfying nonetheless.
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MojoJan 16, 2018Before long, these initially detached settings establish a magnetic, narcotic allure, filled with elliptical hooks and images. [Feb 2018, p.97]
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Jan 19, 2018Maine turns in some of his best songs yet, with “Country,” “Now The Water,” and “Find Me” all showcasing his skill as a crooner, but around its midpoint, the album starts to sag. The House’s three interludes feel less like connective tissue and more like unfinished filler, and the album’s back half ends up seeming rote.
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Jan 16, 2018The agony is there, but none of the nuance or substance that would make you empathise or relate with it.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 17 out of 23
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Mixed: 6 out of 23
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Negative: 0 out of 23
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Feb 24, 2018
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Feb 23, 2018Really nice production and vocal. A few beautiful tracks on this one, but also some filler that prevents it from being really standout.
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Jan 25, 2018