Leaves Turn Inside You

A powerful masterpiece of an album.

Rounding off the edges of its tried and true punk-rock grind with the melodic and rhythmic tropes of '60s psychedelia, Unwound has perfectly re-imagined a sound that most art-students wouldn't even spit on the first time around.

Even in the record's most strung-out moments of tension and distortion, Unwound sound nothing more than soft and sweet.

A unique, epic effort from one of the most inventive and dynamic rock bands in recent memory.

It is the band’s most fully realized musical achievement.... A monumental album by a monumental band.

In many respects, Leaves Turn Inside You is the band's most ambitious, sweeping, and difficult outing yet.... I'm convinced that, if you've been following this band's development, the initial bewildered expression on your face will give way to total enchantment, and this new, boldly different Unwound album will have you in its grip for months to come.

Unlike the band's earlier material, which echoed with thunderous volume, Leaves Turn Inside You is textural and sedate, combining the hazy urgency of Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation with the creativity of Yo La Tengo and the ethereality of Slowdive.

Unwound plays with a tightness and richness that few bands can touch anymore; they have turned into the metal Minutemen.

This album is to Unwound what Daydream Nation was to Sonic Youth: the application of wild imagination and ruthless harmonies to a more mainstream format, while largely dispensing with their heritage and experiments.

Where Unwound's songs have usually been jagged or drained, Leaves Turn Inside You remains level for two discs (almost 80 minutes), making it one of the darkest, most placid hard rock records since Soundgarden's Superunknown.

A string quartet, reverby backing vocals, and Kraut keys crowd the songs like weeds strangling a once hearty plant. [May 2001, p.104]