Buy Now
| Buy on |
|
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Oct 19, 2017What Lotta Sea Lice lacks in flashiness, it makes up for with enduring tunes and performances that, low-stakes as they are, seem destined to resonate and yield fresh surprises for years to come.
-
Oct 9, 2017The truth is that they are both thoughtful, sometimes sentimental musicians, with voices that can sing of love and hurt just as much as eating croissants (“Continental Breakfast”) or friendly girls who insist on touching your face (“Untogether”)--and this is delightful.
-
Oct 11, 2017By eschewing ambition in favor of intimacy, the album is both comfortable and comforting. While Barnett and Vile don’t travel far from their established sounds in their collaboration, the sum of their contributions yields fresh results.
-
Oct 11, 2017Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile are on top of their respective games on Lotta Sea Lice, and hopefully the magic will not stop at one record.
-
Oct 9, 2017Lotta Sea Lice, Barnett and Vile’s first collaborative album together, makes for a remarkably sublime pairing that brings out the best in each artist, an unexpected gem that sits near the top of either’s discography.
-
Oct 31, 2017Lotta Sea Lice avoids the potential flippancy of a side-project, using well considered song selection and quality lyricism to drive a singular but, we hope, not a single collaboration.
-
MojoOct 24, 2017Lotta Sea Lice feels like a happy and deliberate mind-meld, rather than the work of two competing songwriters duking it out knee-to-knee over their guitars. [Dec 2017, p.84]
-
Oct 20, 2017While the album isn’t exactly synergistic in its coupling of the two singers--neither Kurt nor Courtney achieve their lyrical or musical apex here--Lotta Sea Lice nevertheless intimates an unrelenting kinship between its two auteurs.
-
Oct 19, 2017Lotta Sea Lice is strange, occasionally awkward, and easy to love. Like a good buddy movie, it’s a little sentimental, and possessed of a deeper wisdom than its goofy premise initially lets on.
-
Oct 17, 2017Although Lotta Sea Lice didn’t exactly live up to it’s potential and hype, the end result is still something to be reckoned with; a fascinating and balanced attempt at perfecting the concept of the collaboration album.
-
Oct 16, 2017Lotta Sea Lice is a joyful, ambling product of two connected creative minds.
-
Oct 13, 2017Lotta Sea Lice won’t totally slake the thirst of the pair’s individual fanbases for new solo work, but what it does do is see them bring out the best in each other. It’s a powerful testament to the possibilities offered up by a genuine creative friendship.
-
Oct 13, 2017Lotta Sea Lice feels like two old friends getting together for coffee.
-
Oct 13, 2017The beauty of Vile and Barnett being on such similar wavelengths is that each song would work just fine for either artist individually, but combined, their talents--particularly their vocal harmonies--often amount to a whole greater than the sum of its parts.
-
Oct 12, 2017Laughter in the studio punctuates songs that sound as much of a delight to record as they do to listen to: Lotta Sea Lice is at least the sum of its two talented parts.
-
Oct 12, 2017Lotta Sea Lice, with its knotty, sinewy guitars and killer harmonies, is a generous album. Barnett and Vile pack in plenty with zero filler.
-
Oct 9, 2017Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile are brave to make something so gentle, natural and unguarded. They’ve managed to strive for an ideal informed by a real sense of pragmatism, and in the process, they’ve made one of the warmest, good-hearted records of the year.
-
UncutOct 9, 2017An album that splendidly makes the most of a unique creative kinship, as well as a shared desire to cast light in dark places. [Nov 2017, p.18]
-
Oct 12, 2017This is a lazy-Sunday-hang of a record: cozy, congenial, and only periodically exerting the energy to get off the couch.
-
Oct 13, 2017It’s a lovefest in the best way, and a worthy addition to both of their catalogs.
-
Nov 8, 2017With any other protagonists this project could become sickeningly twee, but Vile and Barnett deliver every lyric, no matter how ridiculous, with absolute sincerity. As they close with a stunning cover of Belly’s Untogether, it’s difficult to be cynical about something this utterly charming.
-
Oct 18, 2017While it wouldn’t be unfair to say that the best moments generally belong to Barnett, the combined force of the duo produces a piece of work that certainly doesn’t seem like too much a step down from the superb ‘Sometimes I Sit And Think…’ and ‘b’lieve i’m goin down…’ that had us all so captivated back in 2015.
-
Oct 12, 2017The idea of a Kurt and a Courtney making a record has a darkly funny resonance but the Nineties fantasy-rock pairing they really evoke is Stephen Malkmus and Liz Phair, the languid guitar surgeon and the causally incisive lyrical realist.
-
Oct 9, 2017What the album lacks in ambition or surprise, it makes up for as a showcase of the two artists' chummy chemistry and lovably droll personalities.
-
Q MagazineOct 24, 2017This is an almanac for the chronically inert, best when bottling the sparks that fly as misery meets fine company. [Dec 2017, p.111]
-
Oct 23, 2017There are lapses in quality control (Jen Cloher cover Fear Is Like a Forest is especially leaden) and they’re rather less sure-footed when they cover each other’s songs--or tackle Belly’s Untogether together. Not the triumph it could have been, then.
-
Oct 12, 2017As they're both charismatic singers with a way with an elliptical melody, it's pleasant enough, but by the time its 45 minutes wrap up, Lotta Sea Lice feels like a party where the hosts are having a much better time than their guests.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 36 out of 42
-
Mixed: 3 out of 42
-
Negative: 3 out of 42
-
Oct 14, 2017
-
Oct 14, 2017
-
Nov 2, 2017