Universal Audio
- The Delgados
- Band Name: The Delgados
- Record Label: Chemikal Underground
- Release Date: Sep 28, 2004
- Critic Score
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It all sounds nice enough to start with, but as you hear it more and more you love it more and more, the simple charms showing themselves to be more and more complicated but no less delightful.
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90Like a cookie full of arsenic, Universal Audio's indie sweetness conceals a dark, deathly heart. [Nov 2004, p.114]
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90They've truly hit their stride on Universal Audio.
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83Goes for basic sun-dappled guitar pop. [Nov 2004, p.118]
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80If you like your indie rock sweet and sophisticated with undertones of despair, you'll want to cuddle up with Universal Audio.
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Like all Delgados records, it takes repeated drives along the city outskirts to sink in, but when it does there's no going back, and the listener is rewarded once again with something rich, happily overcast, and strangely intangible.
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80Behind the surface sweetness of Emma Pollock's voice, the chiming guitars, the mellifluous folky lilt of the melodies and direct but deft production, these songs are as complex, adult and frequently as bleak as any the Delgados have ever written.
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80The Delgados won't lose any fans with this one. In fact they might just find themselves in bigger venues on this side of the pond shortly.
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The listener gets acoustic ballads, guitar-driven rock exercises, poppy refrains, and jazz-inflected asides in a single package, and at no point does it really feel that the Scottish quartet is overextending itself or sacrificing the vitality of its work for the ability to slap the name of another sonic digression on the board.
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76Even if Hate stands as their most visionary statement, Universal Audio has a subtler strength.
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Other than the minor quibble that there's not as many immediately bracing hooks as on past efforts, Universal Audio has very little to apologize for.
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Universal Audio is a triumph in pop standard, simultaneously reminiscent of all the clichés, soundtrack archetypes, and euphonic exigencies of pure melody inherent in the mainstream pop of the last two decades. Yet it's still a fully realized, consistently rewarding, original work.
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What remains is pure, unspoilt guitar-pop genius that demands to be marvelled at. [18 Sep 2004, p.65]
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A surprisingly adept three-minute pop formula record. [#7]
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70At times, the sugary vocals do become a little sickly; mostly, though, Universal Audio is a mastercalss in harmonious guitar pop. [Oct 2004, p.122]
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Skip to track 7, then hit play. [1 Oct 2004, p.74]
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Melodies are practically nonexistent, leaving the music almost completely ignorable.
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User score distribution:
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Positive: 7 out of 7
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Mixed: 0 out of 7
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Negative: 0 out of 7
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AliC9
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DanB.9I've listened to it six times in a row now and it's getting better each time.
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RyanH10