- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Entertainment WeeklyEqually suitable for a Wild West saloon or meth lab. [7 Apr 2006, p.63]
-
If the album has flaws, it has great and unique strengths. Difficult, maybe, but captivating.
-
A great record. A great work.
-
Q MagazineThe fact they're doing this in their early 20s verges on the astonishing. [Mar 2006, p.111]
-
Not an album for a sunny day, What the Toll Tells can seem gloomy and filled with shadows.
-
In What The Toll Tells we’ve been served up an In The Aeroplane Over The Sea for ’06 – full of misty-eyed dreams and incredible characters.
-
FilterAppealingly poetic. [#19, p.99]
-
Mostly, the duo sounds loose and spontaneous while running through epic, theatrical story-songs.
-
Their sophomore album is surprisingly world-weary, but brims with an almost brutal rawness and betrays the pair’s striking talent for storytelling.
-
UncutThe raw poetic facade occasionally cracks, but there is something special here. [Mar 2006, p.88]
-
MagnetSure, the stories are worn and the whiskey is cut-rate, but the feeling is real. [#71, p.113]
-
What The Tale Tells employs stock language to present stock characters going through stock conflicts.
-
UrbA sincere winner. [Mar 2006, p.123]
-
SpinUntil they ditch folksy archaisms... maybe it's best for 'em young indie-blues fellers... [to] work on the good ol'-fashioned songwriting. [Mar 2006, p.95]
-
This album is so ripe with hubristic self regard and musical monotony that most of its worth gets crossed out.
-
The quixotic charm wears thin as "Some Slender Rest" dips into lugubrious emo-folk, and the remainder of the album's murdered wives, enraged sheriffs, and luckless roustabouts pile up cartoonishly.
-
Under The RadarEverything sung here is manufactured to conjure up the same bullshit sense of nostalgia that the band's James Joyce-inspired name is supposed to. [#12, p.93]
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 11 out of 13
-
Mixed: 1 out of 13
-
Negative: 1 out of 13
-
BrianDMay 31, 2006
-
davelMay 13, 2006Great music with an edge and a story to tell.
-
GervaisR.Mar 27, 2006