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- By date
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At only nine tracks long, Everything Is New never outstays its welcome, and is the perfect riposte for anyone who had previously dismissed Penate as a scenester who'd got lucky.
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Skins have been shed, batteries recharged and the traditionally difficult second album dashed out with apparent ease.
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His songs are gloriously, unabashedly pop: it's hard to detect anything studied or knowing about them or their musical references. Instead it sounds like the gleeful, inspired work of a man who's recently undergone a Damascene musical conversion, possibly at the hands of his producer, Paul Epworth.
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The album sings from start to finish with the hard-won joy of an artist coming to terms with his own mortality and finding himself all the better for it. [Summer 2009, p.62]
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MojoThe makeover has done him proud. [Aug 2009, p.108]
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Q MagazineEverything I sNew is an inspired volte-face that gives second albums a good name. [Jul 2009, p.128]
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Peñate's enthusiasm for not only his source material, but for the empty canvas of 21st century commercial music itself, feels genuine enough, resulting in an infectious club- and radio-ready collection of cosmopolitan pop that feels both familiar and expansive.
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As with most things Penate does these days, it entertains its titular possibility in no uncertain terms.
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It's wide-eyed pop minus the fizz, demonstrating that sizzle can still be subtle.
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With a greater use of the minor key, he's added flecks of sentiment to what is, predominantly, a very solid pop record. Just don't get bogged down in genre compartmentalisation.
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Jack Penate has made a record that’s light on its feet, has glamour bordering on sex appeal and that doesn’t make you wish a fatwa upon its author.
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Penate has gutted his sound and replaced it with something expressive, warmly empathetic and, best of all, blindingly spangly.
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That it’s couched in such swirling, euphoric music is an unexpected masterstroke, one that turns Everything Is New into not just an unexpected comeback but an album that suggests that whatever guise he adopts next Jack Penate is worth watching.
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Everything is New is a gifted and resounding response to the many nay-sayers out there. It’s not the best Peñate could have done but who else could have expected this kind of departure?
User score distribution:
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Positive: 6 out of 8
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Mixed: 0 out of 8
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Negative: 2 out of 8
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MarkWDec 5, 2009
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MarkRAug 22, 2009
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paulAug 21, 2009