User ratings in Music are temporarily disabled. More info
Waxing Gibbous Image
Metascore
77

Generally favorable reviews - based on 8 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
tbd

No user score yet- Awaiting 3 more ratings

  • Summary: This is the fifth studio album for the ex-Arab Strap band member.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 6 out of 8
  2. Negative: 0 out of 8
  1. As ever from this source, the songs are neatly crafted, with a touch of folk music added to their melodies, not to mention the instantly memorable and quotable lyrics.
  2. The combination of bile and hook, of wiry, mistrustful intelligence meshed in danceable synth pop works throughout the album, the contradictions bristling without overwhelming the tunes.
  3. Q Magazine
    80
    The folowing eight songs amount to a proper return to formm, with Middleton's always literate eye for trivial detail matched by catchy acoustic pop tunes and an underlying bleakness that is quietly gripping. [Jul 2009, p.128]
  4. Middleton and company burn through a set of excellent songs with confidence, ranging from other quick-as-hell rundowns to calm reflection.
  5. Waxing Gibbous is a good, if occasionally overdone, album that proves that his musical imagination is still a fertile one.
  6. Uncut
    60
    There's a sense that it trawls the finest moments of his 15-year carreer. [Jul 2009, p.93]
  7. His new set is disarmingly jaunty, occasionally odd – as on the scratchy electro-folk of ‘Don’t Want To Sleep Tonight’ – and frequently lovely, chiefly on the parched reverie of ‘Ballad Of Fuck All.’

See all 8 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of
  2. Mixed: 0 out of
  3. Negative: 0 out of