- Record Label: Vagrant
- Release Date: Jul 14, 2009
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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Edward Sharpe & the Magnetic Zeros have crafted a love letter to Laurel Canyon and all of its quasi-mystic juju that is as infuriatingly contrived and retro as it is forward-thinking and majestic.
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Weird to say about a hippie, but it's humanity that's missing in Sharpe's mild but mannered and certainly unmemorable music, which feels focus-grouped, stone-washed, and artificial.
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UncutThey deliver a debut of confidence and conviction. [Oct 2009, p.112]
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MojoTo be fair, Sharpe, a dramatic alter-ego for leader/singer Alex Ebert, does corral a few tunes infectious enough to last the distance on Broadway. [Sep 2009, p.90]
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The group's attempts to evoke Age of Aquarius utopianism are suffocated by self-consciousness; the record feels like an art-college thesis.
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Under The RadarWhile perhaps slightly overlong, Up From Below is an album that is almost impossible to dislike, performed as it is with such infectious zest. [Summer 2009, p.61]
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They might recall that the Polyphonic Spree did something very similar--until the public cottoned on to the need for more and better songs. It's easy to imagine the Zeroes turning plenty of heads before a similar letdown follows.
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Following a good few listens, Up From Below's ebb and flow is replaced with definite peaks and troughs, leaving such highlights dulled down.
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Up From Below is an album to be commended, even if it might lead to the scourge of other hippie hipsters appearing in buses across the nation.
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FilterVoid of irony but sounding slightly inauthentic, Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeroes hit the right notes but may be a little late to the revival. [Summer 2009, p.96]
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This is intoxicating psych-indie for heady days in unbroken sunshine.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 36 out of 43
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Mixed: 4 out of 43
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Negative: 3 out of 43
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Aug 20, 2010
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EricCAug 31, 2009
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Dec 4, 2010