- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
While Mythomania doesn’t necessarily punch its way out of that paper bag, the album does feel more immediate, its melodies are more memorable, and the songs do occasionally allow themselves to become more ragged.
-
Mythomania is overdriven, with sparks flying from the bolts in its neck and fruit machine cherries lining up in its vacant eye sockets. But it sounds perfect somehow.
-
The lyrics, sometimes also sung by Mr. Cohen, abound in surrealistic metaphor: the bloom of a flower in darkness, the derisive laughter of the moon. Yet there are lines, and even entire songs, that beg to be taken at face value.
-
FilterIt's deeper than you think. [Spring 2009, p.103]
-
While the band remains true to its less-is-more instincts, Mythomania’s songs stand as fully developed structures that take advantage of their limited instrumentation.
-
Even though Cryptacize remain difficult to pin down, the chances they take on Mythomania bring them a little bit closer to reach.
-
Finding unique ways to handle empty space and unorthodox arrangements has always been Cohen's greatest strength, and here that skill helps to mottle his most straightforward material to date.
-
Under The RadarIt's an across the board improvement that finds ex-Deerhoof guitarist Chris Cohen sharper, drummer Michael Carreira's work more tasteful and deliberate, and vocalist Nedelle Torrisi's performances even more dynamic and beautiful. [Spring 2009, p.65]
-
Cryptacize have made an album that sounds welcomingly familiar for fans of Cohen’s aesthetic, but it won’t likely gain them a much wider fanbase.
-
It stands alone as an album which is well-rounded--there's not much here which is lacking in quality, but much is lacking oomph.
-
With their second album, Cryptacize have given us something much more sure-footed, and with a little more depth, than what we’ve heard before.
-
When their sound tends towards the more coherent and homogeneous (even on the excellent title track) they risk falling victim to an imitativeness, or perhaps simply a lack of aesthetic ambitiousness, that threatens to overwhelm the originality that they bring to the table.
-
Mythomania’s level of sophistication is not hard to achieve and it certainly does nothing to elevate Cohen’s abilities, his contributions to Deerhoof being markedly superior.
-
Cryptacize's latest squanders the band's natural resource: singer Nedelle Torrisi.