- Record Label: Pale Young Gentlemen (self-release)
- Release Date: Mar 23, 2007
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Thoroughly theatric, Pale Young Gentlemen's measured approach is channeled by the bricolage upshot of their composition.
-
It’s a classic first album: A band unpretentiously tangling various genres they--or even listeners--thought would never sound so brilliant together.
-
The band's eponymous debut is a classy, memorable, and swooning collection of sophisticated pop.
-
Overall, a fine album, self-released or not.
-
Pale Young Gentlemen–-as an album--is musical theatre. Switching between moments of mid-tempo melancholy to upbeat cabaret, they strike a perfect juxtaposition.
-
There's a refreshingly human scale to everything on Pale Young Gentlemen--the songs are so strong that the crack of a snare drum and the bowing of a cello, simple gestures as they are, can achieve the band's grand theatrical ambitions.
-
The Gents waltz their way through these ten sturdy, mid-tempo numbers rarely striking a bum note.
-
This music on this self-titled release is perfectly and tightly composed and arranged.
-
As a whole, the release is a bit stronger on the front end, but it's charming enough for the duration that a couple weaker (and somewhat repetitive, given the bands thus-limited oeuvre) tracks don't hold it back too much.
-
While Pale Young Gentlemen is frontloaded and slightly naïve like a record of this sort should be, there's more than enough reason to anticipate what they're capable of when they decide to get darker, older, and less gentle.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 15 out of 20
-
Mixed: 0 out of 20
-
Negative: 5 out of 20
-
Sep 11, 2011
-
DavidGOct 21, 2007
-
FarisR.Oct 18, 2007Pale Young Gentlemen are a pleasure to listen to. Really, what beats "Clap Your Hands"?