Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
The WireMar 4, 2015Lennox is an innovator and a stylist, impossible to accurately imitate or easily dismiss. [Feb 2015, p.50]
-
MagnetFeb 20, 2015Grim Reaper shows that Lennox has bigger things on his mind than mere crowd-pleasing. [No. 117, p.59]
-
Jan 29, 2015Panda Bear’s fourth full-length is a mature album of peace and reckoning, one that weaves ghostly textures, plumbs watery depths, but ultimately happens on something comforting and tranquil.
-
Jan 27, 2015Striking a balance between hypnotic pop and cloudy soul-searching, the album delivers all the ends of the spectrum Lennox has spent years perfecting, giving fully realized and refreshingly jubilant examples of a type of pop music so distinctive to its creator, he ends up in a class by himself.
-
Jan 15, 2015Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper is often blissful electronica for both the heart and the brain.
-
Jan 14, 2015Lennox lost his father to brain cancer in 2002 and the experience has floated through his music ever since, but never has his songwriting been so tragically pointed. There's no ambiguity here, only the gaping emptiness that the absence of a parent leaves behind.
-
Jan 14, 2015As it stands, the album sounds like Panda Bear at the height of his unchecked, uncompromised (and, therefore, at times uninventive) powers.
-
Jan 14, 2015It's a testament to Lennox's dexterity that these brief detours into soft introspection only enhance the wondrous breadth and vision of Panda Bear Versus The Grim Reaper.
-
Jan 13, 2015Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper doesn’t push boundaries so much as it delineates the contours of Lennox’s comfort zone.
-
Jan 13, 2015To say Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper is a textural album is probably stating the obvious, but it very much is, in a way where the individual tracks feel simultaneously adventurous and tamed.
-
Jan 13, 2015The stylistic transition won’t hit everyone the same way, and the album is bound to become his most divisive record to date, but it’s good to hear that an artist with the track record and long-standing popularity of Panda Bear is still willing to take chances and put the effort in to make them work.
-
Jan 13, 2015Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper, Lennox's fifth studio LP, is his most direct and accessible statement yet.
-
Jan 13, 2015This is a more colourful record than its predecessor, but it’s troubled, too.... Meanwhile, aficionados of pure sonic treats are well served. [Feb 2015, p.89]
-
Jan 12, 2015In these songs, Panda Bear has lifted his voice above the instrumental swirl, just enough to reveal some worries about family, friends, purpose and mortality, and to move his music ever so slightly toward pop.
-
Jan 12, 2015It’s frequently arrestingly beautiful (“Selfish Gene”) or driven nearly wild with joy (raucous party-starter “Mr Noah”), but always with a visceral, off-kilter kick where Panda Bear’s last pair of full-lengths opted for heavenly effervescence or communal transcendence.
-
Jan 12, 2015Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper can be a particularly infuriating listen since it wanders between moments of greatness and utter tedium.
-
Jan 12, 2015It’s a playful, fantastical response to some serious life changes.
-
Jan 12, 2015Grim Reaper is an unedited adventure of blossoming soundscapes, vision-blurring, dissonant melodies, and cheerful robot dance numbers like "Principe Real." It hardly hits the same note twice.
-
Jan 12, 2015Lennox still sounds unmistakably like his peaceable bear self, despite having acquired some new carnivorous companions whose firepower, critically, he doesn’t need.
-
Jan 9, 2015By immersing himself even deeper into the world of dub music and its equally minimalist and maximalist tones and tropes, Grim Reaper sounds stronger than anything he's accomplished so far.
-
Jan 9, 2015Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper is dense, slippery, wily, and flung together effortlessly like a meticulously rehearsed sleight of hand. Boy, is it worth the legwork.
-
Jan 9, 2015It may not quite equal Person Pitch or Tomboy, but in its own way could prove to be even more important for Noah Lennox.
-
Jan 8, 2015Playful yet profound, baffling but very beautiful, sticking with Panda Bear Meets The Grim Reaper until it reveals its full dizzying array of riches most certainly is [worthwhile].
-
Jan 8, 2015There’s nothing radically new here, which means it doesn’t have the same jolting appeal as Person Pitch. But rather than repeat himself, Lennox has successfully honed his sound.
-
Q MagazineJan 7, 2015At times, it's a touch muted, a little grey-out, but if this is Lennox staring down mortality, he comes out swinging. [Feb 2015, p.113]
-
Jan 7, 2015On first listen, the album as a whole seems repetitious--there aren't any 12-minute odysseys like on breakout album Person Pitch--but its diversity reveals itself with multiple listens.
-
Jan 7, 2015It’s still as gloriously messy, squelchy and disorientating as ever.
-
Jan 7, 2015Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper is not the private masterpiece that Person Pitch turned out to be, but it might be the final triumphant salute to an unforgettable chapter in Lennox's career.
-
Jan 7, 2015One of the songwriter’s most overtly gorgeous works, it finds Panda Bear easing into new ground while maintaining his near effortless melodic touch.
-
Jan 7, 2015Grim Reaper is consistently engaging, often catchy, and sometimes disarmingly pretty.
-
Jan 6, 2015While it's nice to have the controlled chaos of an Animal Collective album from time to time, it's nice to get some simply moving music as well. [Nov/Dec 2014, p.66]
-
Alternative PressJan 6, 2015Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper arrives as less of a sonic surprise, but his knack for buoyant hooks remains on electronic psychedelia's forefront. [Feb 2015, p.92]
-
Jan 6, 2015Panda Bear Meets the Grim Reaper rides high on his proven strengths, but doesn’t exactly explore new territory.
-
UncutJan 6, 2015He's the kind of singer whose voice you instinctively trust. It's a resource that brings continuity to a fifth album touching on greed, death and dogs. [Feb 2015, p.72]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 86 out of 102
-
Mixed: 9 out of 102
-
Negative: 7 out of 102
-
Jan 13, 2015
-
Jan 20, 2015
-
Feb 11, 2015