User ratings in Music are temporarily disabled. More info
The Way Out Image
Metascore
81

Universal acclaim - based on 22 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
7.9

Generally favorable reviews- based on 13 Ratings

  • Summary: This is the first album in over five years for the electronic duo from New York City.
Buy Now
Buy on
  • Record Label: Temporary Residence
  • Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock, Indie Electronic, Indie Pop, Post-Rock
  • More Details and Credits »

Top Track

A Cold Freezin' Night
(In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps tonight.) A cold freezin' night. Oh, Baby. Kill em'. I wish I was a boy. A cold freezin'... See the rest of the song lyrics
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 20 out of 22
  2. Negative: 0 out of 22
  1. Oct 21, 2010
    100
    The Way Out provides the best introduction yet to The Books' nerdy experiments, but also to the duo's grand, goofy emotional range.
  2. Oct 21, 2010
    90
    It's part of the final duality that makes The Way Out a success: learning how it was constructed is fascinating, but it's equally enthralling to go into it completely ignorant.
  3. Oct 21, 2010
    84
    On The Way Out, their fourth and most dazzling work to date, the duo strikes an ideal balance between found-sound collage and original vocalizations.
  4. Oct 21, 2010
    80
    The stated intention for The Way Out was for each track to be "its own rabbit hole," and the album does indeed manage to survey an impressively disparate set of worlds and modes.
  5. Oct 21, 2010
    76
    This electronic-folk duo, in the likeness of bohemian hedonists, turns meticulous attention-to-detail into bounding creativity--and something unequivocally bookish.
  6. Oct 21, 2010
    70
    There might be less going on than with the cut-and-paste stuff elsewhere, but ironically that makes these tracks seem like most fully formed moments here, the points of contrast which, as with all successful collages, make The Way Out work as a whole.
  7. Oct 21, 2010
    40
    Partly cartoon, part Sesame Street, and with a healthy dose of consequence-free childish threats and violence, A Cold Freezin' Night is a welcome distraction to the meandering electro-drone that populates the rest of the album. But from here on in, it's a case of the law of diminishing returns.

See all 22 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 1 out of 1
  1. Feb 11, 2022
    3
    here might be less going on than with the cut-and-paste stuff elsewhere, but ironically that makes these tracks seem like most fully formedhere might be less going on than with the cut-and-paste stuff elsewhere, but ironically that makes these tracks seem like most fully formed moments here, the points of contrast which, as with all successful collages, make The Way Out work as a whole Expand

Related Articles

  1. July's Best New Music

    July's Best New Music Image
    Published: July 29, 2010
    Our list of the best-reviewed albums from the past month is topped by Sir Lucious Left Foot himself, and also includes discs from indie buzz band Best Coast, pop singer Kelis, and Las Vegas crooner Tom Jones. (Yes, that Tom Jones.)