Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
UncutMay 2, 2012The remaining quintet have lent their cosmic retro-rock both better tunes and more surprising detours. [Jun 2012, p.83]
-
Apr 13, 2012Spine Hits is still a great collection of rock songs, and while there's a grain or two of filler, it delivers in immediacy and replay value.
-
Apr 10, 2012Spine Hits as a whole is a tighter operation, less intended to soundtrack your mushroom trip, but a worthy attempt to bridge the gap to the mainstream.
-
Apr 10, 2012By and large though they still end up falling on the sword of 'Fever''s brilliance.
-
Apr 13, 2012Ripe for radio play it may never see, Spine Hits is a neutral but enjoyable record for the impending days of sun and so-what.
-
Apr 10, 2012Spine Hits feels too spacious, lacking the depth that both [newly-departed singer] Fannan's swelling vocals and improvised jams filled the band's two previous releases [with]. Regardless, Spine Hits is an enjoyable listen.
-
Apr 12, 2012The band finally sound battle weary, like they've climbed a peak and now want to rest in a quiet valley. The haze has taken over. And perhaps that's why the album presents itself as "hits"-not bong hits, though that's possible; but rather giving the sense of a posthumous collection.
-
Apr 10, 2012"Boat Trip" is the album's strongest moment, a gently treading meeting of spacy Fleet Foxes-style harmonies and buried aquatic melodies cribbed from post-SMiLE-era Brian Wilson mania.
-
Under The RadarApr 10, 2012Another 11 driving, sun-faded jams, occupying that headspace somewhere between early Flaming Lips and Traffic. [Mar 2012, p.87]
-
Apr 10, 2012While the overall sound is brighter, it's also largely rather weedy, and trading in the once colossal stoner riffs for languid neo-folk doesn't really suit this five-piece all that well.
-
Q MagazineApr 25, 2012Fans will crave more drones and dreaminess (Deep War and Lioness (Requium) are half-hearted attempts) and newcomers less stoner arrogance. [May 2012, p.106]
-
Apr 24, 2012With occasional flashes of their previous excellence, Spine Hits has too many drab moments to make this anything other than their weakest work yet by far.
-
Apr 10, 2012Their most lukewarm effort. What was, in their early days, delicious in its languor is now turgid and inert, struggling for hooks with only the most tepid sense of melody.