Critic Reviews
| 80 |
All Music Guide
It's a tighter, less primitive album than its predecessor, but as such, it has a lot more to offer as well.
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| 80 |
Dusted Magazine
It's easy to hear why Rubin swooped in to release this.
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| 80 |
The New York Times
The songs are written handsomely, and with effort: solemn introductions, multiple gear-shifting bridges, cruising solo passages.
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| 80 |
Delusions of Adequacy
This album is a feast for the uninitiated.
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| 80 |
Uncut
Magnificent Fiend is both indebted to the past and utterly timeless, wild but controlled, chin-stroking clever and head-shaking dumb, referential without being reverential. [May 2008, p.88]
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| 80 |
The Guardian
Now and then, alas, it is perhaps more Dave Matthews Band than Steve Miller Band, but when it all rings true, as on the glorious crescendo and singalong that closes Lord Have Mercy, it's an impeccably pitched, retro-rock joy.
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| 80 |
Mojo
Their sun-baked, lyrically feverish chooglin' is more textured and melodic on these addictive new jams, ripe with Hammond-flavoured funkadelia and visionary gospel-prog. [May 2008, p.111]
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| 75 |
Prefix Magazine
Everyone who likes Howlin Rain’s sound will come away from Magnificent Fiend wanting more. At just eight tracks, it’s a rare full length that doesn’t seem full enough.
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| 72 |
cokemachineglow
These seven songs (eight if you count the intro) sound great in the car, are loaded with Hammond organ and Fender Rhodes, and Miller’s throaty bellows are higher in the mix than on the first Howlin’ Rain album
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| 70 |
Drowned In Sound
So there is a lot to love within this album. Its knowing winks to rock’s early ‘70s excesses and sage-like nods to the soulful marriage of rock and rhythm and blues exemplified by Sly and Curtis mean that we’re comforted rather than challenged.
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| 70 |
Under The Radar
This is good, old-time rock and roll, beer in hand and completely earnest. [Winter 2008, p.82]
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| 60 |
Pitchfork
It's not until Magnificent Fiend's closing trio of seven-minute behemoths that Howlin Rain find traction, though it's the band's willingness to tweak its grand appropriations, rather than the tracks' epic lengths, that helps the songs stick.
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| 60 |
Tiny Mix Tapes
I’d rather be listening to Magnificent Fiend’s antecedents.
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| 60 |
Spin
When [Ethan Miller] bellows, "Lord, have mercy on my soul," the result is hokey, irresistible fun.
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