Buy Now
| Buy on |
|
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Jul 26, 2021Spiral is a swoon worthy record, and one that cements Darkside as one of the brightest glowing acts of its kind.
-
Jul 23, 2021This is a truly mesmerizing follow-up for a band with few peers and even fewer fears.
-
Jul 20, 2021With six of the nine tracks written in 2018, it's unbelievable how well this record flows and holds together — and that's without even mentioning how prophetic the tracks have proven to be over the last three years.
-
Jul 23, 2021Spiral is an album to experience as a whole, to be swallowed in and transported by.
-
Jul 21, 2021On Spiral, DARKSIDE push their limits, all the while honing the distinctive sound that made the project so singular to begin with.
-
Jul 23, 2021To my ears, the songs here still feel like detailed, unfolding odysseys rather than studio happenstance but, no matter their method, the results catch lightening in a bottle, again.
-
MojoJul 22, 2021Spiral slowly reveals a core mood, triangulated between Talk Talk, Radiohead and Pink Floyd models of taut, blissful, trance-inducing rock, but often beat-driven. [Sep 2021, p.86]
-
Jul 22, 2021It's one of those rare albums where dropping the needle at different spots in the same song would yield wildly different sounds, but every move is so gradual and well thought out that the wild changes and potentially jarring clashes blend into one another seamlessly.
-
Jul 22, 2021‘Spiral’ is a gorgeous, often filmic listen that rewards with each spin. Most importantly, Jaar’s enhanced vocal role gives a new voice to troubling themes previously suggested in the stirring moods of Darkside’s music. Eight years was worth the wait.
-
Jul 20, 2021Spiral is a more settled affair. Jaar and Harrington lean into rhythm and repetition more here, not willing to pull out the same number of jump scares just for the sake of it, a masterclass in the art of precision and withholding.
-
Aug 5, 2021The LP's spirally nature is actually its biggest problem, as the duo choose to coil back into themselves again and again, creating a merely good album that’s on the cusp of greatness.
-
UncutJul 27, 2021Though not everything here works, Spiral remains consistently intriguing throughout. [Sep 2021, p.27]
-
Jul 22, 2021Even while Spiral never quite touches on the grandeur of its predecessor, Jaar and Harrington here appear content as ever laboring over their unique vision.
-
Jul 23, 2021Jaar and Harrington’s individual visions only grew more vast in the eight years leading up to Darkside’s return with Spiral, a work of unexpected and even unprecedented familiarity—less a portal than a kiosk existing entirely within the boundaries set by Psychic.
-
Jul 20, 2021While Spiral, like Psychic, includes moments of virtuosic integration – songcraft complemented by innovative sonics, innovative sonics contextualized by songcraft – there are other (and more) moments where the album seems to lack a unifying aesthetic.
-
Jul 20, 2021Wwhile Jaar and Harrington assemble a worthy array of mesmerizing sounds on Spiral, a larger, more compelling vision eludes them.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 8 out of 9
-
Mixed: 0 out of 9
-
Negative: 1 out of 9
-
Aug 5, 2021
-
Aug 1, 2021
-
Jul 23, 2021