The Lights from the Chemical Plant
by Robert Ellis
  • Record Label: New West
  • Release Date: Feb 11, 2014
Metascore
72

Generally favorable reviews - based on 13 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 13
  2. Mixed: 5 out of 13
  3. Negative: 0 out of 13
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  1. Uncut
    Feb 11, 2014
    90
    Ellis' purist, even traditionalist, voice is the perfect vessel for his sanguine portraits of ordinary people, battered and bruised but never without hope. [Mar 2014, p.72]
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  2. Paste Magazine
    Feb 11, 2014
    86
    Ellis broadens his musical reach beyond deadly accurate classic country to often austere arrangements that reflect his small etchings of real life without aggressive genre-coding.
  3. Exclaim
    Feb 28, 2014
    80
    It's an elusive and subjective notion, but it's impossible to listen to this rich, remarkable album and not be left thinking that this is the sound of Ellis coming into his own.
  5. musicOMH.com
    Feb 27, 2014
    80
    It is a marvellous creation from a premiere talent, and deserves both your time and hard-earned money.
  6. The New York Times
    Feb 11, 2014
    80
    [A] gut punch of a third album of downcast roots music and soft, soft rock.
  7. AllMusic
    Feb 11, 2014
    80
    The Lights from the Chemical Plant is an inspired, mercurial record, by an artist who cares deeply for tradition, but refuses to be bound by it.
  8. American Songwriter
    Feb 11, 2014
    80
    It’s the personal narratives that are the most poignant.
  9. Filter
    Feb 14, 2014
    76
    Producer Jacquire King (Tom Waits, Kings of Leon, Norah Jones) gives each song a poppy slant even when the lyrical content wrestles with the jetsam of life.
  10. Mojo
    Apr 23, 2014
    60
    An album that falls between traditional and progressive country stools. [May 2014, p.89]
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  11. The Independent (UK)
    Feb 28, 2014
    60
    Despite his desire to move more towards pop on this third album, Robert Ellis can’t prevent his country roots showing through.
  12. PopMatters
    Feb 13, 2014
    60
    As the storyteller in these songs, Ellis injects just enough emotional distance between himself and the subject matter to prove that there is another side. And that’s where he lives. It might not be airy and bright, but there is solid ground under his feet.
  13. Rolling Stone
    Feb 11, 2014
    60
    The young Texas songwriter, who has proved his honky-tonk chops onstage, takes this opportunity to offer 11 expansive folk-pop songs that are closer in weary spirit to Paul Simon.
  14. Austin Chronicle
    Mar 12, 2014
    50
    Part of the problem remains in Ellis' reedy voice, which mutes the impact of the songs like the soul-stirring title track and a misplaced cover of Paul Simon's "Still Crazy After All These Years."

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