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Jan 14, 2013Lady from Shanghai intrigues more often than not, and shows that Pere Ubu can tap into paranoia, loathing, and the downright weird with nearly as much ease and eloquence as they did almost four decades before.
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Jan 7, 2013The tunes, riffs and words might not be as impressive as those from the days of yore, but this is still a very arresting example of sonic art: tense and deranged, savage and serrated.
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Jan 17, 2013The new album's a stunning return to, and expansion from, seminal Ubu form.
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Classic Rock MagazineJun 6, 2013Mostly, it's an invigorating set that sounds, like a cubist marriage of King Of Limbs and Eno & Byrne's My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts. [Mar 2013, p.95]
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Jan 14, 2013There is a blood on the dance floor at this party, and it sounds so refreshing.
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Jan 7, 2013Pere Ubu's first studio recording in three years is a suitably abstruse, challenging and dense record, and yet another example of how Pere Ubu remain at the very peak of experimental avant rock.
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Jan 4, 2013Although this is a far cry from the standard of their late Seventies heyday, the band have continued down their obscure path with little deviation, creating a sound which, although challenging and on occasion elitist, is there own.
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Feb 12, 2013They are super-tight and competent, but with an undercurrent of madness and chaos, a well-oiled machine that is infinitely more interesting because it might blow up at any time.
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MagnetFeb 12, 2013Sure, it's a mess. But it's a brilliant, manically theatrical mess, true to Welles' self-destructive spirit. [No. 95, p.57]
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MojoJan 18, 2013A convincing and often quite brilliant restatement of Ubu's early noir-meets-B-movie-sci-fi inclinations. [Feb 2013, p.93]
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Feb 1, 2013Lady From Shanghai is not an enjoyable record--it’s not meant to be--nor is it by far Pere Ubu’s finest or most original musically. Yet it deserves applause for what it attempts to achieve, which is largely successful.
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Feb 19, 2013It’s nowhere near as annoying, despite my physically manifest aversion to it, but it definitely is not trying to please you, or make you comfortable, or even happy in any way.
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Jan 8, 2013Even at its unruliest, Lady From Shanghai is gripping.
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Jan 9, 2013There's a real groove to be found here for those up for a slight challenge, and there are moments that are almost commercial in ambition.
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Q MagazineJan 24, 2013Lady From Shanghai laughs in the face of chart pop, but the listener can't help cackling along. [Feb 2013, p.108]
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Jun 4, 2013It can’t ever realistically hold a candle to The Modern Dance or its seismic follow-up Dub Housing, but it regularly flirts with inspiration.
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Jan 7, 2013Lady from Shanghai, a mess of sonic blips and disorienting blotches of misshapen clutter, has no secrets; it's impossible to dig deeper into something that's only surface-deep.
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Jan 14, 2013Like the film from which it borrows its title, Lady From Shanghai is an artfully awkward study in malaise.
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Jan 4, 2013This is no pop album, and the more freeform passages can be difficult to get a grip on. But go with the high concept and there's plenty to appreciate in Thomas's doggedly peculiar methods.
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Jan 4, 2013It's an absorbing, sometimes harrowing ride.
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Feb 11, 2013Its gentle musical cacophony is tipped over into truly scary territory by the lyrics of sole constant member David Thomas--all delivered in murderous mumbles and frustrated, elongated moans--transforming Lady From Shanghai from a run of the mill quirky rock album into a thrillingly worrying piece of art.
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Jan 22, 2013Lady From Shanghai is another excellent addition to the Pere Ubu discography, the sound of a band using comparatively limited means to explore a deceptively broad spectrum of sound, confusing the boundaries between pop and the avant-garde.
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The WireJan 8, 2013It's a rich and layered work that refuses to be easily summed up. [Jan 2013, p.69]
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Jan 11, 2013The concept understood, no longer intriguing, no longer as unique as it's presented, runs out of interpretations on the final induction of every theory and concept highlighted.
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UncutJan 4, 2013Last original member standing David Thomas remains inscrutable, defining Lady from Shanghai as an album of dance music. [Feb 2013, p.78]