Unreal

Blumberg is a capable, if not particularly distinguished guitarist. He is also a songwriter with an unusual gift for sticky, familiar hooks and the issue here is that Unreal puts far more emphasis on the former.

Blumberg attains an excellence on Unreal that isn’t usually expected of a debut album.

Neil Hagerty in the producer's chair is a good fit for an album that deliberately blurs the pre- and post-Nirvana boundaries. [Aug 2013, p.92]

It's all tastefully executed, but there is painfully little to get excited about here. [Sep 2013, p.104]

This is warm, sleepy music that buzzes like a fridge. Best heard lying down.

A six-tracker feels a bit slight, but he sounds on the verge of finding his own style.

Unreal's feel is of the hangover following the hedonistic romp that was Yuck--reassembling a broken self into a positive whole, and taking an auspicious step in a new direction.

Blumberg’s drowsiness gets the better of him. When pitted against chunkier hooks and punchier songs, his voice shambles winningly.

Unreal is a labyrinthine effort you’ll find almost impossible to not get lost in.

Perhaps Blumberg didn’t know at the start that the Hebronix release would lead to a split from his band, but most of the six songs on Unreal catch him in the mood to say goodbye.

There are special moments to be found in this disjointed musical grab bag, so if nothing else, the record at least gives enough reason to keep an open ear for what comes next.

Mixing baroque instrumentation with choral elements, Blumberg adopts an already accomplished and familiar formula--but it’s one that, through his subtle twists, still manages to feel intimate and fresh.

When it succeeds, the album achieves a kind of weightless beauty above and beyond anything else in the Londoner's repertoire, and even the relative failures display the kind of ambition to suggest that his decision to leave Yuck was justifiable.

It dishes out moments of pure brilliance and moments of pure laziness in equal part, which is possibly the result of Blumberg being left to his own devices a little too much.

Their [Daniel Blumberg and Neil Hagerty's] collaboration resulted in an album that requires close attention to find the golden details hidden in its crevices. [Aug 2013, p.88]

You get something that's very lovely and poetic and melancholy and vulnerable and unspeakably beautiful. [No. 100, p.54]

Producer Royal Trux's Neil Hagerty doesn't try to rein in Blumberg's more abstruse inclinations, but finds ways of unveiling their strange beauty.

Fans of Yuck who are coming into Unreal hoping for and album as plentiful of hooks as that album might be slightly perturbed at first not to find anything as tight or punchy as something like “Get Away” or “The Wall,” but after spending time with the album you’ll find that each song possesses an airy, sing-songy hook that’s easy to latch onto.

The album has an easy-going pace to it, opening up a little more with each graceful transition and quiet revelation.