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This Machine
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This Machine Image
Metascore
50

Mixed or average reviews - based on 11 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
6.0

Mixed or average reviews- based on 6 Ratings

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Top Track

Rest Your Head
Go to sleep - the play is over Left your ticket on the seat Be redeemed when you're dreaming Lay your head and go to sleep Don't you worry till... See the rest of the song lyrics
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Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 11
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 11
  3. Negative: 2 out of 11
  1. Absolute Punk (Staff reviews)
    Apr 23, 2012
    84
    With a record this charming, one can only hope they last two more decades.
  2. AllMusic
    Apr 23, 2012
    80
    It's the closest the band has come yet to something genuinely uplifting and irony-free -- no small feat for these tongue-in-cheek provocateurs, but This Machine suggests that the Dandy Warhols are actually improving with age, which is an even bigger accomplishment.
  3. The Boston Phoenix
    Apr 23, 2012
    63
    This is a subdued, atmospheric affair, rooted in bangs-in-the-face, black-polish-on-the-fingernails '80s rock.
  4. Pitchfork
    Apr 23, 2012
    51
    At the outset, This Machine seems like an apt title for a record that surges forth with a wiry, motorik momentum; by the end, it becomes an all-too-fitting descriptor of a band going through the motions.
  5. Q Magazine
    Oct 12, 2012
    40
    This Machine sounds more like an off-cuts collection than a comeback. [Jul 2012, p.98]
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  6. Magnet
    May 24, 2012
    40
    A record that plays like just the sort of effort we've come to expect from the Dandy Warhols: an uninspired, over-referential half-nod to the group's heroes. [No.87, p.54]
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  7. The A.V. Club
    Apr 24, 2012
    25
    An undistinguished slog of an album that counts an atrocious cover of "16 Tons" as one of its many grating moments.

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User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 2
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 2
  3. Negative: 1 out of 2
  1. Lochie13
    May 9, 2012
    9
    This review contains spoilers. I thought this album was quite good. They have definitely grown into a better band since their last album. And their cover of Sixteen Tons was fantastic!… Collapse
  2. JennetP
    Jan 21, 2013
    3
    I write this review reluctantly, but the truth is, this record proves that the Dandies have lost it. As a HUGE fan of their first five albums,I write this review reluctantly, but the truth is, this record proves that the Dandies have lost it. As a HUGE fan of their first five albums, one who proselytized endlessly on their behalf in the early 2000s, I've listened to their last three releases with increasing dismay, unable to find even one song I really liked--or even wanted to play more than once. "This Machine," as several critics have pointed out, seeks to return to earlier strengths, and, certainly, most of the familiar elements are there. But the songs remind me of those computer programs that seek to tell us what we'll like on the basis of what we've enjoyed before (Netflix: "You liked 'Reservoir Dogs,' so you'll like 'Caged Animal.' Me: I would, if I liked bad movies as much as good ones.). Though undeniably Dandyesque, the songs never get up on their feet and stagger around, much less leap, dance, or fly, as earlier tunes did. One reason is that the group no longer EVER pulls its tongue out of its cheek, either to rock or to reach for the sublime. What worked in the past was the balance between snarky art-school knowingness and real power; now all we get is the snark. If you want to see what I mean, just compare the prosaic "Rest Your Head" with the beatific "Sleep" or the snickering cover of "16 Tons" with the elegiac cover of "Ohio." We get it that you'll never know what it is to be "another day older and deeper in debt," guys, and you can laugh about that all you want at band practice, but some of us find privileged laughter in public--even the most acerbically ironic--offensive. Not to mention f*cking clueless. So, music fans, if this band is new to you, go back a decade at least. Us Dandies fans have a funeral to plan.… Expand

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