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Skin Of Evil Image
Metascore
64

Generally favorable reviews - based on 11 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
8.1

Universal acclaim- based on 7 Ratings

  • Summary: The second full-length solo album for Frog Eyes/Swan Lake's Carey Mercer.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 11
  2. Negative: 0 out of 11
  1. Skin of Evil is hardened, seamless, and totally unrelenting, everything full-bodied and visceral about Frog Eyes squeezed until it sublimates. This is scary, ethereal shit. It’s also a gorgeously captivating half hour of bedroom pop pushed screaming out of bed.
  2. Skin of Evil, out on Soft Abuse Jan. 20, is a breathtaking, mesmerizing record, a lyrical song cycle about love and loss, affection and anger and alienation.
  3. Mercer's able to fill cavern-like spaces with the might of his many soliloquies. Easy listening or not at all, it's why Skin of Evil--here and gone in just 30 minutes--remains so gripping: Some turns are capable of provoking a physical reaction.
  4. Skin of Evil is not unlike Mercer himself—prickly, unfriendly, demanding, but fascinating and compelling just the same.
  5. Skin of Evil may come off as an unwieldy curio at first pass, but lingering listens will reveal the gripping gothic undertow of Mercer's warts-and-all songwriting, even for newcomers.
  6. Ironically, the general listening population--if they’re paying attention at all; hey, there’s a chance!--will find this to be Mercer’s most accessible, enjoyable work to date.
  7. Under The Radar
    40
    The album suffers both a lack of the compromise that comes with collaboration, and an inability to identify then serve the muse that all of his characters are whining about. [Spring 2009, p.70]

See all 11 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of
  2. Mixed: 0 out of
  3. Negative: 0 out of