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Advance Base Battery Life Image
Metascore
71

Generally favorable reviews - based on 12 Critic Reviews What's this?

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  • Summary: Owen Ashworth latest album is a collection of singles and compilation tracks released between 2005 and 2008.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 10 out of 12
  2. Negative: 0 out of 12
  1. It’s refreshing to hear his music decontextualised--without a wider narrative, or the restraint of having to make an album as a piece, it’s Ashworth’s songwriting that has to hold the collection together.
  2. They provide a helpful and--mostly--enjoyable overview of the scope of Ashworth's work.
  3. The odd bits and bobs typical of the 7-inch and B-side world manage to make Advance Base Battery Life a little more interesting than Owen Ashworth's previous work.
  4. Under The Radar
    70
    Advance Base Battery Life finds all the signature CFTPA attributes in display with the usual blankets of ambient electronics, tinny drum machines, a few synthetic strings, and Ashworth's genius monotone lyrical narratives about breakups, laundry mats, and just about every other mudane subject only Ashworth can make interesting. [Spring 2009, p.70]
  5. Just when you thought Chi-town loner Owen Ashworth couldn’t trump his previous four efforts in terms of schmindie obscurity, he goes and wheels out a bunch of twee reinterpretations of oldies and rarities.
  6. Advance Base Battery Life stands as a mostly enjoyable, if slightly disjointed, recap of Ashworth’s non-album singles.
  7. Q Magazine
    60
    So while this collection of singles, B-sides and cover versions might lack the tight focus of previous album Etiquette, there is still flashes of lo-fi pop brillance. [Apr 2009, p.102]

See all 12 Critic Reviews

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