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UncutOct 18, 2011They've really only got one trick. But it's a treat, all the same. [Oct 2011, p.98]
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Oct 5, 2011Violent Hearts is a resoundingly successful debut that puts the band right at the front of the line of all the reverb-heavy, backward-looking indie pop bands that overran the music scene like seagulls on the beach at low tide in the early part of the decade.
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Oct 5, 2011As a full-length listening experience, Violent Hearts is a little much-- it runs just under a lean half-hour, but the relative lack of stylistic breadth covered makes a front-to-back spin feel longer.
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Oct 5, 2011Violent Hearts occasionally plods, as on "No One," "Other Girls," and the opener "Believe," (at least before its delightfully messy climax). But more often it quietly impresses, revealing new melodic and harmonic strands with each subsequent listen.
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Oct 5, 2011The songs on Violent Hearts are short overall, the longest holding out at 2:56, but pack enough swinging teenage angst clasped in an arm wrestle with buoyant '50s pop oooh's to charm you into repeated listens.
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Oct 5, 2011Yes, it's enormously derivative, but it's also frequently exhilarating.
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Oct 5, 2011Ultimately, Hearts is an adolescent album in every conceivable sense.
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Nov 15, 2011If the record has a drawback, it's the consistency of sound that runs from song to song.
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Oct 5, 2011Violent Hearts manages to tread the line between familiarly catchy and refreshing throughout.
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Oct 5, 2011The vocals are obscured, but nothing else really meshes.