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Strays
by
Strays Image
Metascore
84

Universal acclaim - based on 19 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
7.9

Generally favorable reviews- based on 8 Ratings

  • Summary: The fourth full-length solo studio release for singer-songwriter Margo Price was produced by Jonathan Wilson.
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Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 19
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 19
  3. Negative: 0 out of 19
  1. The Telegraph (UK)
    Jan 13, 2023
    100
    Price’s fantastic fourth album, Strays, advances boldly into terrain occupied by such exalted US rock craftsmen as Jackson Browne and Tom Petty, with soulful vocal swagger, a widescreen band sound and a poetic lyrical depth that should leave most of her Nashville peers prostrate at her feet.
  2. PopMatters
    Jan 9, 2023
    90
    Strays reveals Price’s strong talents as a musician and a human being.
  3. Uncut
    Jan 9, 2023
    80
    With this devastatingly personal song cycle, Price completes her transformation from retro-country preservationist to anything-goes auteur. [Feb 2023, p.35]
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  4. Mojo
    Jan 9, 2023
    80
    Muted, syncopated beats, ghostly pedal steel and icy Solina string machine conspire to create the effect of a slow-motion scene: unwanted debris blowing away in the wind, with our stronger and more resolved singer standing at the centre of the wreckage. Even amid the ashes of her past, it seems, Margo Price keeps burning ever more brightly. [Feb 2023, p.80]
  5. AllMusic
    Jan 12, 2023
    80
    Sharp, incisive songwriting remains at the heart of her music, allowing Price to weave different sounds and rhythms into her probing, emotionally open songs.
  6. American Songwriter
    Jan 13, 2023
    80
    Price breaks down any barriers left around her on this record to great appeal. In just 10 songs, she manages to tell a lifetime of stories that are captivating from start to finish.
  7. Slant Magazine
    Jan 9, 2023
    60
    Strays continues in the classic rock-inspired direction of 2020’s That’s How Rumors Get Started, breaking from the neo-traditional country music that put Price on the map. The arrangements employ slide guitar and keyboards—even xylophone on “Time Machine”—with a punchy yet spacious mix, but the album flaunts its influences a bit too transparently.

See all 19 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. Bleet
    Mar 14, 2023
    8
    This is my favorite margo album so far. And a great year to start off the country music year. I like the songs "radio" and "change of heart."This is my favorite margo album so far. And a great year to start off the country music year. I like the songs "radio" and "change of heart." They are my "C" grade level songs. "Time machine" is B level to me, but can certainly rise cause i still listen to it. Radio is just a shock, and change of heart sound remind me of "4 years of chances" from her frist album and it too can still rise. These 3 songs are good but they aren't anything Margo haven't done before or better. Even from her first album I felt she had a chance to be specail but I never thought her writing would reach the level is it on the "big four" I call them, all A level and rising to all time classics in my book: "Hell in the heartland," "county road," "lydia" and landfill." i'm not sure what make of "Been to the Mountain" yet. I hope she keep improving and I'm willing to bet this is going to be a top 5 album of the year by the end of it, which me i'm hoping for a grammy nomination but i don't know how the billboard sale count is going to effect that but this is close to a classic for me, at the very least it has classic songs on it.… Expand

Awards & Rankings

85
#85 Best Album of 2023

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