- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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Califone takes familiar elements and often combines them in unfamiliar ways without sounding unfamiliar or ever losing sight of the song.
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Alternative PressInventive and highly improvised. [Feb 2004, p.88]
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BlenderFor all their wriggly noise details and fragmented language, their center of gravity is in their hips. [#23, p.101]
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Heron King Blues, for all its successes, is not an album for Califone rookies.
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Its about mood here. These numbers would rather glow than soar.
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Entertainment WeeklyTheir shambling songs... stick with you like a spectral fever dream. [20 Feb 2004, p.66]
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MojoKeeps an unsteady path between fine altered-state atmospherica and irritating cosmic twittering. [Feb 2004, p.100]
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The music is mysterious and moody, with an unusual blend of instruments and lyrics full of strange imagery, but no real narrative.
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With Califone's penchant for extemporaneous creation finally being properly indulged, Heron King Blues is an appropriately loose and sprawling record, requiring a bit more patience than some of the band's previous projects.
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[A] hapless, semi-comatose new record that should have started with the last two tracks, while the rest of the album should have been scrapped.
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Q MagazineThere's less of Califone's rootsy side here and more floaty mood-pieces or doomy dance grooves. [Feb 2004, p.98]
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Heron King Blues may lack spark and consistency, but it's a decent (just not essential) addition to the Califone catalog.
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SpinRutili still crafts a tuneful funeral dirge with the best of them. [Feb 2004, p.104]
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Compelling listening.
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The weak point of the disc... is the songwriting.... But if youre in it for pure sonic pleasure, youre in the right place.
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The WireEvokes the same stark, road weary melancholy as Ry Cooder's score for Paris, Texas, but with a far more extensive sonic toolbox. [#240, p.57]
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Heron King Blues definitely signifies a transitional phase for the band.
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UncutA free and forward-thinking kind of record, but also one that taps into forgotten, mythic resonances of American music without ever sounding ersatz, hokey or remotely contrived. [Mar 2004, p.92]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 3 out of 5
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Mixed: 1 out of 5
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Negative: 1 out of 5
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RambunctiousLumberjackJan 8, 2005
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AndyJan 30, 2004