- Record Label: 8ft. Records
- Release Date: Sep 11, 2012
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Nov 8, 2012Palmer seems intent on cramming as many ideas and textures into every song as she can, which is exciting at first but exhausting by the halfway point of an excessively long album.
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Oct 5, 2012Perhaps the best way to approach Theatre Is Evil is not even as an album, but rather a collection of songs--all fairly similar but often good, sometimes very much so.
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Oct 5, 2012In Theatre Is Evil, Palmer hasn't just topped her best releases to date. She's done it with room to spare.
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Oct 4, 2012One of the year's best rock records.
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Oct 4, 2012The album is all about big and big is what you get.
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Sep 18, 2012This record isn't simply a record, it's an emotional, intricate experience that keeps on after the instrumental break.
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Sep 18, 2012This isn't a record you dismiss on one spin and parts require some work from the listener, but given proper attention Theatre Is Evil unfolds into something multilayered and quite lovely.
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Sep 17, 2012The record is the most unvarnished rock music Palmer's ever created, leaning heavily on '80s goth and the oddball New Wave of folks like Lene Lovich.
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Sep 14, 2012Theatre is Evil bristles, crackles, aches, and moans with surprising efficiency considering its 15-song length, pairing fractured synths and staccato guitar riffs with Palmer's throaty, untamed pipes, sounding for all the world like a brazenly cool, alternate-universe version of No Doubt.
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Sep 11, 2012Kitsch aside, Amanda Palmer is one hell of a musician and lyricist, and this album, thankfully, makes good on its million-dollar expectations.
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Sep 10, 2012In every sense, Theatre Is Evil sounds like a million dollars.
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Sep 10, 2012If you like a theatrical sound with a dose of anarchy, quirk and unpredictability, this record comes highly recommended.
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Sep 7, 2012Around two thirds of Theatre Is Evil's songs are bolted to the chassis of a loud, poppy guitar band, bringing inescapably to the fore Palmer's gift for killer-catchy melodies and stratospheric contrapuntal arrangements.
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Q MagazineSep 6, 2012Most of the record is a vivid splurge of new wave, glam-rock and showtunes, armed with lyrics as punchy and memorable as their melodies. [Oct 2012, p.108]
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Under The RadarSep 6, 2012The gut-wrenching moments are too often usurped by lost wallets, Instagram photos, and tales of songs on the radio--none of which add up to anything greater than the sun of their parts. [Aug/Sep 2012, p.113]
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Sep 6, 2012Theatre Is Evil feels like sitting on the bed of your tattooed, far cooler cousin 30 years ago, while she tells you "all you need to know" about music.
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Alternative PressSep 6, 2012Palmer captures the human condition like no other artist. {Oct 2012, p.90]
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Sep 6, 2012The faithful will lap up every eccentric note, of course, but there's much here for the uninitiated to delight in as well.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 19 out of 23
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Mixed: 1 out of 23
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Negative: 3 out of 23
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Sep 12, 2012
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Dec 13, 2019This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.
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Oct 30, 2013