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Goodbye to Language Image
Metascore
72

Generally favorable reviews - based on 7 Critic Reviews What's this?

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  • Summary: The latest solo release for the producer/guitarist who worked with Bob Dylan and Brian Eno features the pedal steel guitar and Rocco DeLuca on lap steel.
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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 7
  2. Negative: 0 out of 7
  1. Sep 9, 2016
    81
    For the most part, the music gives the illusion of being something sourceless, something created without effort--not product, but pure being; not labor, but freedom.
  2. Sep 9, 2016
    80
    Goodbye to Language is a powerful, intoxicating album and one of Lanois' best works in at least a decade.
  3. Mojo
    Sep 9, 2016
    80
    A series of richly textured, ambient instrumentals from pedal steel guitar. [Oct 2016, p.92]
  4. Sep 16, 2016
    70
    The listener either needs to 1) absorb the unifying mood in its entirety or 2) keep an ear out for isolated moments of transcendent yet touch-and-go beauty. Fortunately for the headphone listeners out there, Goodbye to Language has an abundance of both.
  5. Nov 3, 2016
    60
    A stripped down album, Lanois' production is pristine and the contoured soundscapes here should be digested as a whole, rather than consumed as individual tracks.
  6. Uncut
    Sep 9, 2016
    60
    The album sounds like one good idea stretched out to a meandering and repetitive 40 minutes. [Oct 2016, p.32]
  7. Magnet
    Sep 20, 2016
    50
    There's melody and rhythm, but mostly the overtones float through the ether, seldom resolving into anything approaching a song, although the overall effect is soothing and dreamy. [No. 135, p.54]