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This isn’t Mandell’s best album ("Thrill" holds that distinction), but it’s as strong as nearly anything else she’s done.
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Mandell’s best, most varied album is hidden somewhere inside Artificial Fire. You have to dig through 20 minutes of brightly painted filler to find it, and unfortunately 12 of those minutes make up the album’s first three songs.
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The band is excellent, but Mandell's melodies sit uncomfortably amid the burly arrangements, and her lyrics, inflated to match the broad-shouldered music, lapse into poetastery.