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Continuous Portrait
by
Continuous Portrait Image
Metascore
80

Generally favorable reviews - based on 5 Critic Reviews What's this?

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  • Summary: The third full-length release for the collaboration between Eluvium's Matthew Cooper and Explosions in the Sky's Mark T. Smith is their first since 2015's Maze Of Woods.
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  • Record Label: Temporary Residence
  • Genre(s): Electronic, Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Indie Electronic, Post-Rock, Experimental Ambient
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Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 5
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 5
  3. Negative: 0 out of 5
  1. Paste Magazine
    Jun 3, 2020
    85
    A nice surprise in a year full of unpleasant ones. It’s also one of the best experimental releases of 2020 so far. Continuous Portrait doesn’t depart dramatically from the lively ambient sweet spot of Inventions’ previous work, but it does expand the duo’s sound to make deeper use of one element usually absent from Explosions in the Sky: the human voice.
  2. Beats Per Minute
    Jun 3, 2020
    80
    You don’t get the sense that either over-rides the other in terms of input, and this project allows them to fully immerse themselves in the creation of sounds and musical structures that do not lean on the output of their other projects. There is a range of emotions and musical textures present on this album and it feels like quite a ride by the end.
  3. PopMatters
    Jun 3, 2020
    80
    Unlike many similar instrumental projects, Continuous Portrait is suffused with hope and empathy, but also a keenly executed sense of adventure.
  4. Dusted Magazine
    Jun 5, 2020
    80
    All of the sounds seem a little brighter, a little more spiritually charged than their real-world counterparts would be, especially the voices, which float untethered to narrative but imbued with boundless optimism and uplift.
  5. AllMusic
    Jun 3, 2020
    70
    There's a charming looseness to the album; while never abrasive, the samples sometimes clash with each other a bit, and it all has the feeling of a cut-and-paste collage, sounding far less refined than Eluvium or Explosions' dramatic, labored-over epics. ... The album is a poignant, playful collection of future memories.

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