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The album is a satisfying hodge-podge of guitar noises, as they doff their caps to shoegaze, garage, prog, punk, post-punk, baggy and pop throughout their musical tourist-trip.
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Three records into their career, The Ponys still sound like a really young band. And I can't be more complimentary than that.
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It's a pounding alt-rock dynamo with its head sunk in Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr rarities.
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Mojo12 knockout tunes soaked in feedback and melody. [Apr 2007, p.96]
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Turn the Lights Out is the most mature and technically accomplished album the Ponys have made to date, but it doesn't lack the excitement and edge of the fine music that preceded it.
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FilterWhile Turn the Lights Out may be missing some of their past piss 'n' vinegar... the love of good ol' fashioned guitar rock is still their calling card. [#24, p.94]
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The Ponys make good records, and Turn the Lights Out is no exception, but I'm still waiting on the great one I've always felt they'd had in them.
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It’s more polished and sonically ambitious. But it’s not a major departure.
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They still sound like imitators, but they're imitators moving toward a place they can call their own.
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SpinJohn Agnello's knob-twiddling is spot-on. [Mar 2007, p.98]
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UncutHistorically confused it may be, but the simple pleasures of Turn The Lights Out are hard to deny. [Apr 2007, p.115]
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Even if almost every song here sounds like something someone else has already done, there's still originality to be found.
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Under The RadarThe Ponys continue to revel in the two-guitar rock song, naturally, but they step out stylistically. [#17, p.92]
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Maturity has doomed too many bands to mention over the years, but this ain't one.
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There’s not a lot behind the well-polished surfaces.
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Much of "Turn the Lights Off" is inspired by '80s artists who wanted to sound like they were from the '60s.
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The Ponys are the band Black Rebel Motorcycle tried so desperately hard to be.
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There's a profound lack of any surprises, anything you might not expect, any... inspiration.
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[It] takes an echoed-up tack that's more Sonic Youth than Voidoids.
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Gummere’s voice is no one’s idea of pretty, and his lyrics are sometimes hard to decipher over the squall. But they’re both secondary to the nose-bloodying sonic punch.
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Turn the Light Out scales everything back—the drums, the guitars, the vocals—leaving us with a clean-cut, grown-up Ponys, trying to get comfortable in their own skin when they were just fine in someone else’s.
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Q MagazineMore often than not, The Ponys end up stranded in a morass of pointless guitar static. [Apr 2007, p.121]
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[The album] s clogged with reverb-choked guitar riffs too woozy to propel the garage rock they ought to carry.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 4 out of 5
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Mixed: 0 out of 5
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Negative: 1 out of 5
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SamHMar 29, 2007
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JonViaChicagoMar 23, 2007
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BeauNMar 21, 2007