• Record Label: Fat Cat
  • Release Date: Jul 7, 2009
Metascore
72

Generally favorable reviews - based on 13 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 8 out of 13
  2. Negative: 0 out of 13
  1. These Four Walls is like a 50-minute, 11-song tour through the Scottish scene’s past, present, and future, emphasizing how much of the country’s best pop music has been concerned with transporting listeners to specific places, so we can all linger there together.
  2. These Four Walls is rousing, pop-like in its immediacy and pretty damn enjoyable.
  3. These Four Walls retains its charm, even when Thompson goes to the well perhaps one too many times with the line repetition trick.
  4. Mojo
    80
    As this crackles with youthful brio and subtlety, we can start speculating what this band may go on to achieve. [Aug 2009, p.98]
  5. These Four Walls is a consistently exciting album full of memorable songs, and one of maybe five records this year so far that I would recommend unreservedly.
  6. It's a nagging feeling that despite the sheer addictiveness of the material, the stonkingly monumental percussion and the band's fledgling yet highly-accomplished abilities, it’s a bit devoid of that certain spark.
  7. Sure, this isn’t going to frighten the rabbits just yet, but they do occupy a beguiling space between playful celtic reverie and the pits of drone-rock hell.
  8. They don't have the lyrical complexity of the bands that they will be compared to (from a young U2 to the aforementioned Frightened Rabbit), but they do have the energy and that's a promising place to start.
User Score
8.6

Universal acclaim- based on 20 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 20
  2. Negative: 0 out of 20
  1. IsaacA
    Jul 15, 2009
    10
    With a Scottish drawl akin to The View they combine the pop know-how of Snow Patrol, the talent for the slow-burning epic of Sigur Ros, and With a Scottish drawl akin to The View they combine the pop know-how of Snow Patrol, the talent for the slow-burning epic of Sigur Ros, and the driving guitar work of Biffy Clyro. Full Review »
  2. EliasK.
    Jul 12, 2009
    5
    Dull and staged. You keep waiting for these songs to break through and explode with some kind of energy but they fall flat.