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Oct 17, 2017The Ooz is an Archy Marshall hash, the strange scraps of his brain stewed into something unrecognizable and delicious.
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Oct 12, 2017This is not an album to absorb in desperate moments, but rather an artfully brooding, grime-y thing that stands as a terribly unique and nightmarish account of what it could sound like to spiral out of control.
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Oct 19, 2017No matter that feeling, illustrated with one distressed scene after another, filtered through a multitude of inspirations and a few bodily fluids, The Ooz is a completely engrossing work from a one-off.
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Oct 16, 2017The OOZ is undoubtedly another thought-provoking entry into the discography one of Britain’s most exciting and challenging young artists. An intense, yet rewarding listen.
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Oct 13, 2017The OOZ drops at our feet like a piece of poisoned fruit, a masterpiece of jaundiced vision from one of the most compelling artists alive.
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Oct 10, 2017The OOZ creates a brutalist and beautiful terrain, one that we can wander vicariously through King Krule; it’s nothing short of a masterpiece.
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Oct 12, 2017Even after many spins, the album still reveals unheard layers as you shift your focus around Marshall's isolating masterpiece; it'd be profoundly depressing if it wasn't so brilliant.
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Oct 10, 2017The Ooz is not always a fun listen, both because of Marshall’s effectiveness in communicating his pain and his tendency to avoid editing as much as he probably should. Even with three or four excess tracks, the album is still an essential listen.
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Q MagazineOct 24, 2017The Ooz can be dark and difficult. But it is also ambitious and delightful, reaffirming the delightful, reaffirming the delicate boundary between beauty and ruin. [Dec 2017, p.103]
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Oct 24, 2017This is, to date, the most complete expression of Marshall’s musical ethos, and it’s done in such an immersive fashion that it’d be foolish not to resist. Nothing released in 2017 so far has sounded anything like The OOZ, and it’s doubtful that anything will be as great, either.
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MagnetOct 17, 2017I hear another kid in the time honored-tradition of Paul Weller between the Jam and the Style Council, eager to explore the musical universe without any adults telling him how to go about it. [No. 147, p.55]
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Oct 16, 2017The OOZ also practices an astonishingly brilliant economy of sound, allowing only the most needed instrumentation to percolate to the surface, emanating and radiating: nothing is overblown; everything is necessary.
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Oct 11, 2017Taken whole, it’s a looping, dense, all-encompassing experience where anger and tenderness bang heads throughout. Marshall’s world is grimier than ever.
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UncutOct 10, 2017Rich and strange. [Nov 2017, p.30]
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Oct 10, 2017The Ooz is a meandering, disorientating trip through punk, ska, jazz and hip hop--held together by Marshall’s menacing vocal sneer.
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Oct 13, 2017All that aimlessness is certainly on brand for the hazy expanses Marshall so clearly wants to create, but like the seeping unctuousness for which the album is named, it threatens to engulf his more potent songs.
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Oct 16, 2017The slower songs are this album’s great strengths: the magnificent Czech One, Lonely Blue and Logos all deal rivetingly with relationships (“her solvent’s dissolved”), while more guitar-oriented tunes such as Dum Surfer recall Jamie T.
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Oct 13, 2017That’s definitely not to say that the more languorous tracks don’t have their beautiful moments, with the likes of ‘Lonely Blue’ and ‘Sublunary’ providing an emotional apex to the album. As it draws on though, it gets easier to think that a bit of brutality on the cutting room floor might only have been of benefit to The Ooz.
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Oct 12, 2017The end result is by turns gripping, idiosyncratic, baffling and frustrating: not so much an ooze as a splurge of ideas--that’s nevertheless worth picking through.
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MojoOct 10, 2017Marshall's irregular flashes of idiosyncratic brilliance impress, though The OOZ's 19 tracks contain many longueurs that merely baffle or bore, so tread carefully. [Nov 2017, p.100]
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Nov 13, 2017The unpromising combinations separate rather than coalesce. The talented, pugilistic youngster’s best feels yet to come.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 97 out of 110
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Mixed: 5 out of 110
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Negative: 8 out of 110
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Oct 13, 2017
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Oct 13, 2017King Krule on The OOZ is a moribund blossomer. Dark, discordant, vicious rock and moody jazz; more interesting than anything else you're listening to.
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Apr 16, 2020This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.