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- Summary: The alternative rock trio's eighth album was produced by Van Rivers and the Subliminal Kid.
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- Record Label: 4AD
- Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock, Indie Rock
- More Details and Credits »
Top Track
| Love or Prison | |
|---|---|
| Combing your hair I know nothing about you Smiling like a young moon Looking in the mirror My card knows you could be happy like a child Raising... | See the rest of the song lyrics |
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Score distribution:
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Positive: 14 out of 25
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Mixed: 11 out of 25
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Negative: 0 out of 25
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Always building and beautiful, their sparse, even minimal, approach lends Penny Sparkle a complexity that's both rich and rewarding in both its inspiration and execution.
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The exploration of yet another new form on Penny Sparkle shows how exquisitely Blonde Redhead can continue to add cogs to an amorphous musical wheel without tripping up.
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Penny Sparkle straddles the line between comfort and tension, the woozy synths bleed into one another, the music is warm and enveloping but frequent, unexpected minor chords and bass rumbles mean you can never be as comfortable as you'd wish to be.
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This is an album that, once consumed, lies dormant in the mind of the listener, ingrained but not at the forefront, playing in the subconscious; more demanding than background music, but short of immediacy.
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UncutCocteau Twins, MBV and Angelo Badalamenti are obvious touchstones for the narcotised, heat0haze beauty of Penny Sparkle, which might stupefy were it not for the stylishly gloomy "Love Or Prison" and the deliciously frost-bitten "Oslo." [Oct 2010, p.87]
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The trio are certainly equipped for the challenge, since they're already experienced purveyors of foreboding, romantic, minor-keyed dreaminess; but their dub-tinged candle-flicker sometimes trades haunting for drab.
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Outside of a distorted vocal on "Not Getting There" and a slowly blooming and surprisingly gripping waltz ("Everything Is Wrong"), the arrangements seem done up like hospital rooms, every sound picked for maximum sterility.
Score distribution:
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Positive: 1 out of 3
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Mixed: 2 out of 3
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Negative: 0 out of 3
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Nov 29, 2010
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Sep 27, 2010
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Oct 3, 2011
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