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Sep 28, 2020Sylvan Esso have always made albums that demand to be listened to at the expense of everything else in your record collection. Free Love is no exception. It’s the pair’s most cohesive body of work yet, and despite its more left-field moments, possibly their most accessible.
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Sep 28, 2020Free Love is an album you wade through, one that carefully encourages you to move with it and move through it, challenges your existence and presses you to feel, then drops you off lightly just a few feet away. It’s a true testimony to the fertile partnership that is Sylvan Esso.
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Sep 28, 2020There’s something in the way Sylvan Esso craft their music, weaving folksy melodies and acoustic instruments with synths and 808s, that feels like exactly what pop music should be: punchy and pure.
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Sep 29, 2020It’s sometimes refreshing to hear them lean into their minimalist instincts a little more this time around, but often there’s just a bit of weight missing from the bones.
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Oct 2, 2020Detractors will rightfully point out that Free Love utilizes the same sonic architecture as its predecessors, but it's a fairly idiosyncratic template and one that Meath and Sanborn have shown great skill with over three albums now. Besides, the world always needs more dance music for introverts.
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Oct 2, 2020“Free,” is also one of its most interesting, as Meath all but whispers her way through a reflection on love and illusion while synth chords (but no beat) gently pulse around her. The middle of the album, though, lines up too many tunes that never catch fire, and thus run together. ... To its credit, Free Love does close on a strong note with “Make It Easy.”