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May 28, 2013Slow Summits is an unhurried, understated masterpiece that should make fans of the band, and of music in general, glad that the Pastels have not only stuck with it for so long, but grown into the kind of group that could release something this warm and beautiful.
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Q MagazineJun 17, 2013A record that's been worth the wait, it's the sound of music made by true originals. [Jul 2013, p.109]
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MagnetJun 17, 2013Slow Summits is full of carefully arranged autumnal tunes: thoughtful, intimate, unaffected and wistfully romantic. It's secret music worth sharing.[No.99, p.56]
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Jun 4, 2013Every song is good, albeit not life-changing.
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May 29, 2013Nothing unduly groundbreaking here, yet at the same time always brutally refreshing.
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May 24, 2013It's a very welcoming album that will please Pastels fans, and hopefully find some new ones.
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May 24, 2013It’s a record that will make you smile and swoon as it burrows its way into your heart. A triumphant return.
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UncutMay 23, 2013Slow Summits is bold and immediate. [Jun 2013, p.78]
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May 28, 2013Like all Pastels albums, Slow Summits feels like the work of a tightly knit gang of outcasts.
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May 28, 2013Though it has been sixteen years since their last studio album, not much is technically new here except a further tendency towards the mellow and ongoing hopeless romanticism.
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May 30, 2013Throughout Slow Summits beauty and brightness are paired with someone’s absence. There’s a perpetual disappointment held not far from the surface, but they sound like they’ve come to certain terms with it.
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May 30, 2013Nitpicking aside, it's a gratifying collection of sunny, gentle indie pop. Few bands can shake off such a long hiatus without a little residual rust; The Pastels have done it better than most.
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May 29, 2013Slow Summits doesn't rank with the Pastels' best work, but it will subtly remind the group's committed, fanatical following of why they fell in love in the first place.
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May 28, 2013Spend any element of time with it and each passing play opens the album up, showing it off as the special, if often-understated record that it is.
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May 23, 2013The music is a lot more accomplished here than on, say, Up for a Bit, but still loose, unpremeditated and a little bit straggly.
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May 23, 2013While Slow Summits might not set your pulse racing it’s a fantastic example of a band throwing themselves into making a record as lush and pretty as they possibly can.
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May 28, 2013On Slow Summits, The Pastels sound not like a long-overlooked cult band making one last grasp at fame, but like a respectable contemporary in an indie-rock genre they once pioneered.
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May 30, 2013Slow Summits sees the band producing less shadowy than their peers and fellow Scotsmen Belle & Sebastian.
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May 24, 2013Slow Summits presents The Pastels at their most amiable, bearing the quiet, understated splendor of a picnic with friends on a warm Sunday morning.
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May 24, 2013Stephen McRobbie's wan vocals remain an acquired taste, but the way the music lightly folds in dark and light, innocence and experience, reserve and euphoria, lifts the likes of "Slow Summits" and "Summer Rain".
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May 23, 2013Their first full-length album in 16 years displays an unexpected new maturity.
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MojoMay 23, 2013Another album big on willful naivete and arrangements so pretty they make Belle & Sebastian sound like Finnish black metal. [Jun 2013, p.86]