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Howl Image
Metascore
80

Generally favorable reviews - based on 9 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
7.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 6 Ratings

  • Summary: This is the third full-length release for British electronic artist Ryan Lee West as Rival Consoles.
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  • Record Label: Erased Tapes Records
  • Genre(s): Electronic, Techno, Pop/Rock, Experimental Techno, IDM, Neo-Electro
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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 7 out of 9
  2. Negative: 0 out of 9
  1. Oct 19, 2015
    90
    Howl is a well-crafted structure, built on the foundation laid by its predecessors. It's certainly the pinnacle of West's career so far, and up there for electronic album highlight of year.
  2. Oct 19, 2015
    80
    Even though West does chop and change his palette across Howl‘s nine forays into artificial life, it’s this evolutionary approach that supplies the record with its essential--and highly effective--framework.
  3. Oct 19, 2015
    80
    Howl finds Rival Consoles limiting his palette in order to creatively push himself, resulting in what is easily his most cohesive, expressive full-length to date.
  4. Oct 22, 2015
    80
    It is the sharpness, leanness, and absorption in detail found on Howl that combine to make it a success. It’s not impossible that it could ultimately out-shine a lot of the bigger names it has been pushed up against this year.
  5. Nov 20, 2015
    80
    With compressed mechanical wheedles circling each other like birds on “Ghosting” and the self-explanatory “Morning Vox,” the machines pumping through Howl are the most organic you’ll hear all year.
  6. Oct 22, 2015
    77
    The soundscapes he's constructed on his third LP, Howl, are spiky and imposing, too solid to sink into. The music is always shifting, so it's impossible to lose track of time while listening.
  7. Oct 19, 2015
    58
    Despite its frustratingly monadic nature Howl does hold attention.

See all 9 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of
  2. Mixed: 0 out of
  3. Negative: 0 out of