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Life Coach Image
Metascore
64

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

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  • Summary: Trans Am's Phil Manley releases his first solo album.
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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 4 out of 7
  2. Negative: 0 out of 7
  1. Feb 7, 2011
    70
    Life Coach is surprisingly mellow considering the heavier and louder sounds Manley has pursued for most of his career, but it's never boring: the way it encompasses the pop and avant sides of his music will please fans of his other work.
  2. 70
    There's a nagging feeling that Life Coach is a sketchbook instead of an art exhibit, and feels a little insubstantial at times. The album hits more than it misses, though, and makes up for the fact that it doesn't really have too much new to say by trading in an impressive range of styles while managing a moody cohesiveness.
  3. Feb 15, 2011
    70
    It's an accomplished, knowing work that only seems to have its head in the corner.
  4. Feb 7, 2011
    65
    It's to his credit that he never seems too in awe of his most obvious antecedents, instead simply choosing to flex his own capabilities within the tight constraints that musicians like Rother, Hans-Joachim Roedelius, and Dieter Moebius have operated within for decades. Still, it's a shame Manley didn't choose to filter more of his own ideas into the myriad eulogies on offer here.
  5. Uncut
    Feb 14, 2011
    60
    Phil Manley's first solo album presents as a homage to the spirit and sound of mid-'70s German Electronic rock. [Feb 2011, p.90]
  6. Feb 7, 2011
    50
    Life Coach is worth a listen, but its best use may prove to be the excuse to revisit the records that it quotes and the bands that made its existence possible in the first place.