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Banhart's persona emerges intact despite the mainstream sound, however, and What Will We Be becomes a pleasantly fresh album to follow the ponderous, sprawling "Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon."
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Q MagazineMark this down as the point which we can say with certainty for the first time Devendra Banhart is here for the long run. [Nov 2009, p.113]
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Butler’s done well to harness the fuller ideas first explored on "Smokey" but, in doing so, has sacrified raw Devendra for something just a bit too, well, Bees-y.
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The sixth studio album by Devendra Banhart is the best he's ever made. What Will We Be is also great enough in patchouli-scented spurts to suggest that the 28-year-old singer-songwriter's defining classic is one more record and a little more focus away.
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On this, his major-label bow, the (now beardless!) prince of freak-folk has harnessed his many left-field tics and energies to craft his most elegantly driven work yet.
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A big improvement over 2007's ho-hum "Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon," it's also the most consistently satisfying full-length he's made.
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What once made Banhart such a strange bird--roaming from jazz to folk to indie pop, often within a single song, as on the impossibly catchy 'Chin Chin & Muck Muck'--now seems almost mainstream, as if the rest of the pop world has not only caught up with him, but left him in its dust.
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Entertainment WeeklyMaybe he's listening a little too closely to his spirit animal, but either way, the guy sure sounds inspired. [30 Oct 2009, p.58]
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Some will be sad to find that his pulsating vocals and wacky storytelling have subsided, and that his vague lyrics have grown simpler. But anyone who’s avoided Banhart’s hippy-busker tunes now have a reason to give him a chance.
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Banhart clearly gets bogged down in that freedom, as the amount of sheer hokiness on some of his albums can attest to. But with What Will We Be, Banhart gets back to earning that right for total creative freedom.
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A basement-made bundle of hypnotic unpredictability, this one looks to be a grower.
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He filches from a variety of genres--Brazilian Tropicalia, glam rock, lounge jazz, Zeppelin-like psychedelia--but it never sounds awkward. He loosens the stitches on each to fashion his own unique costume.
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Even when Banhart seems more in a predicament than in the zone, he’s hopelessly inventive. Several songs experience complete transformations over their modest three-minute spans, succeeding like little daybreaks.
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This time the quintet holed up for two months in a Northern California cabin, and the resulting collection from the idiosyncratic singer/songwriter is intimate, experimental, and ultimately accessible.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 11 out of 15
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Mixed: 3 out of 15
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Negative: 1 out of 15
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Apr 2, 2011
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Jan 19, 2021
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Apr 14, 2013