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Feb 23, 2017Farrar, with his ever-changing band, has been doing this decades, but it seems like by looking back further, he’s found a way to energize himself going forward.
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MojoFeb 21, 2017Sometimes it's more about a blues feeling, encompassing high-lonesome, electric country-blues rock, two-chord garage rock and at its most beautiful on the opening track Promise The World. [Apr 2017, p.94]
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Feb 21, 2017Son Volt doesn’t try anything fancy on Notes In Blue, nor does it need to. It simply puts the spotlight on the frontman and lets him knock every one of these songs high into the stormy skies and right out of the park.
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Feb 15, 2017A brave, and welcome, transformation.
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UncutFeb 14, 2017It may just be the most satisfying record he's made since the group's stellar 1995 debut. [Mar 2017, p.24]
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Feb 14, 2017Farrar’s a reluctant figurehead for the down there and downtrodden. There are no gilded towers here, no tyrannies of elitist plutocrats, just the open highway and a ride in an old boneshaker with an engine leaking hopes and dreams.
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Mar 13, 2017There’s gold to be uncovered here.
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Mar 1, 2017Anguish is only half the tone, and its match is found--there is snarl and there is bite in Notes of Blue.
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Feb 15, 2017Sometimes the electricity is there, and when it is it connects deeply, but when it doesn't it's hard to see past the banality of its structure.
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Feb 14, 2017Notes of Blue is a solid effort overall; here's to riding the wave of change and surprise as Farrar's songwriting continues to evolve.
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Feb 14, 2017After that opening salvo, though, Notes of Blue is driven more by stylistic immersion than a renaissance of Trace-level songwriting. While this results in the occasional lapse into bland formula (namely the joyless dirge “Midnight” and the drifty acoustic piece “Cairo and Southern”), Farrar for the most part sounds utterly invigorated by his new sense of direction.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 7 out of 9
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Mixed: 1 out of 9
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Negative: 1 out of 9
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Mar 6, 2017