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The music is, as ever, varied and interesting. The Satanic Satanist is a guitar-centric album and it is all the better for it, as Gourley has a unique knack for riffs and leads.
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While it's certainly enjoyable, it's also a bit more generic than anything they've done before.
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Combining Motown falsettos and the best of late-'60s groove rock with spacey loops and hipster-art-collective ?sing-alongs, they deliver a sound that's friendly and familiar without being derivative; it's a sort of retrofitted make-out van on a club crawl.
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The Satanic Satanist constructs an exquisite medium between indie music and hard rock.
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Rather than indulging the impulse to ride grooves this mellow off into the sunset, the band keeps one eye trained on the meter (most songs clock in under three minutes), while the other drifts off into the clouds, like on the ’60s-era antiwar singalong 'People Say.'
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As a whole The Satanic Satanists is an enjoyable listen with dynamic arrangements that, while they never stray too far from pop’s narrow confines, rarely sound formulaic.
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Under The RadarThe result is a (surprisingly) coherent and effective soul-and-funk-inspired album that doesn't try to overstep itself. [Summer 2009, p.62]
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Alternative PressThe band are able to overcome the production errors through Gourley's elastic vocal counterpoint, bassist Zachary Scott Carothers' pocket-groping lines and licks so gooey they recall a time when Keith Richards could speak in complete sentences. [Aug 2009, p.110]
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FilterWhere do these ever-evolving Portlanders go from here? It's anyone's guess, but their latest effort sends them off in the right direction. [Summer 2009, p.106]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 35 out of 37
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Mixed: 0 out of 37
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Negative: 2 out of 37
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Aug 27, 2013
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Jun 22, 2013
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May 13, 2016