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The rest of Under the Blacklight feels like the Jenny Lewis show and even if this album doesn't push Rilo Kiley to the top, it's hard to deny that it feels like the launching pad for her ascent into true stardom.
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Ultimately, the change in direction will likely raise a few eyebrows among some diehard fans, which isn't to say the songs here aren't noteworthy in their own right.
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Creamy and precise, every coo and arpeggio blows through your ear buds like the ruffle of crisp bills.
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Entertainment WeeklyFor the most part, Blacklight is far too flat to shine. [24 Aug 2007, p.130]
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Ahead of their Electric Picnic date, the LA rockers ditch their mainstream sheen on their fourth album.
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Every one of the eleven songs attached to Blacklight is a stunner in purely musical terms.
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MojoThis band brings a grubby beauty to a sound imbued with the insidious durability of the Buckingham-Nicks Fleetwood Mac. [Sep 2007, p.105]
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Terse and beaty, with Dr. Dre referral Mike Elizondo going half on the baby, this isn't a pop record, but it does avoid guitar-band shapes, sonics and truisms.
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Long-term Rilo Kiley fans may take their time to warm to Under The Blacklight.... This sees them develop their sound and mature with it.
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Under the Blacklight is at once more ethereal that anything Rilo Kiley has ever managed previously.
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Q MagazineOn an album tat is filled with gems, Jenny Lewis is the crown jewel. [Sep 2007, p.85]
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It's yet more adventurous, a prosperous band's challenge to its comfortable cult.
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Some of these genre shifts work better than others, of course, but the record is so tightly constructed that nothing ever crashes and burns.
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SpinLewis' wordplay smartly unspools over the course of a song--with 'Breakin' Up,' she creates a 'Since U Been Gone' for grown-ups, and on '15,' narrates an Internet jailbait vignette without melodrama or moralizing. [Sep 2007, p.132]
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The L.A. quartet has returned with an album that's teeming with creatively executed ideas, to the point where it almost feels like the band was just using its first three albums to warm up.
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This album is a pleasant surprise disguised as an unpleasant one.
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Under The Blacklight is by far and away the most accessible album that Rilo Kiley have ever made.
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Under The RadarUnder the Backlight is a confident, assured move by a band unafraid of distancing themselves from the indie rock mopers. [Summer 2007, p.76]
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Under the Blacklight is a brief and often bizarre record, jiggling with artificial rhythm and awash in backup singers imported from 1981.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 31 out of 52
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Mixed: 12 out of 52
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Negative: 9 out of 52
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Apr 2, 2011
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Mar 9, 2011
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EinarJ.May 4, 2008