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- Summary: Mark Eitzel's fifth solo release since the breakup of American Music Club is his first album in three years. Unlike on his previous albums, Eitzel is mostly alone here, both producing and playing most of the instruments.
- Record Label: Matador
- Genre(s): Indie, Rock, Alternative
- More Details and Credits »
Score distribution:
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Positive: 10 out of 12
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Mixed: 2 out of 12
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Negative: 0 out of 12
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This time out, Eitzel has built his arrangements around spare keyboard lines, atmospheric electronic samples, and percussion loops that blend with his voice and acoustic guitar to create an effect that suggest a more spare, organic version of Portishead, or a Jon Brion production that's stuck in a blue funk. But the new surroundings suit the songs quite well...
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A typically bruised and beautiful collection of lovelorn ballads, Raymond Carveresque character studies and darkly romantic confessionals.
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Again shows that Eitzel is a total gem of a singer/songwriter.
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Eitzel's songs, at their best, could serve as fodder for the next Sinatra, should such a crooner emerge from a dingy bar on the far side of town. As performed by Eitzel himself, his compositions resonate with a mix of existential melodrama and black humor that cuts deep to the bone.
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While the San Francisco-based songwriter is still crafting unmistakably Eitzel-esque gloom tunes, his latest, The Invisible Man, is his most eclectic outing to date, veering from the low-key electronica of the opening track to the understated atmospherics of "Sleep."
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SpinHis finest album since American Music Club split. [June 2001, p.145]
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While the sound is often thick -- layers of dewy guitars, keyboards, old organs, bass, drums/beats -- it's always concerned with the "space" of the piece, such thickness often casting insular environments in which Eitzel's voice can wander lonely.
Score distribution:
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Positive: 2 out of 2
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Mixed: 0 out of 2
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Negative: 0 out of 2
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HerveBSep 8, 2004
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BenjaminBunnyApr 17, 2004Not really a great album, but the closest he's come since AMC's "Mercury." The electronic elements, surprisingly, bolster this.
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