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- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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Aug 8, 2011Disappointing fare from Britpop revivalists on the receiving end of critical vitriol.
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Aug 2, 2011What's frustrating is that it's too damn enjoyable and not quite derivative enough to actively hate.
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Aug 2, 2011Famous First Words sounds less like a manifesto, more like a misguided step-by-step guide.
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Jan 18, 2012Famous First Words was always going to struggle to live up to the band's bold promises, but it's still a shock at how a Brit-pop scene renowned for its color can be responsible for something so utterly drab.
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MojoAug 26, 2011Viva Brother lack much of Blur's charming artyness and all of the Gallaghers' battering rock immensity and football terrace touch. [Sept. 2011, p. 96]
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UncutAug 18, 2011Famous First Words passes by amiably enough, like a TV clip-show but is eerily without a sense of place, time or even quirk to make you believe in it. [Sep 2011, p.98]
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Q MagazineAug 16, 2011Recent name change can't save disappointing debut. [Sept. 2011, p.105]
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Aug 2, 2011If you want to stretch your wings further, you need originality and you need not just bravado but actual courage--and Viva Brother's world is neither brave nor new.
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Aug 2, 2011As Famous First Words plays, it's impossible to stop craving something, anything, a bit more original, up to and including a fusion of the deep pulse of the digeridoo with the soaring heights of the bagpipes. That's certainly an achievement, but not, you suspect, the one Viva Brother were aiming for.
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Aug 2, 2011There isn't really an awful lot else to say. Famous First Words might not be the worst record you'll hear this year, but it's certainly one of the most pointless.
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Aug 2, 2011Yet for all their bluster of writing anthems for a new generation and saving guitar music, the reality is little more than a damp squib.
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Aug 2, 2011In execution the whole thing comes off as nothing more than a thinly disguised, crass attempt to smoke latent Oasis fans out of hiding. Unfortunately for them, Beady Eye already beat them to the punch.
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Aug 12, 2011As a record that Geffen plus Newell and co expect anyone to pay for, this album is a distillation of all that is wrong with British guitar music, peddled by a band so consumed by their own deluded egotism that they think of themselves as its saviours.
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Aug 2, 2011Strident guitars and harmonies tug one's sleeve, eager for attention they don't merit, while the lyrics seem to be about nothing.
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Aug 2, 2011This debut is so lame, it makes the Beady Eye album sound like Let It Bleed.
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Aug 2, 2011Ultimately, Famous First Words sets the cause of resurgent guitar rock back… ooh, a good 20 years.
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Aug 9, 2011This album is an abomination. It's a rancid pile of regurgitated tripe.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 2 out of 15
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Mixed: 2 out of 15
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Negative: 11 out of 15
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Aug 11, 2011
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Jun 1, 2012
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Sep 24, 2018