- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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Nov 26, 2014Tomorrow's Modern Boxes is similar to The Eraser in its electronic aesthetic; it's cohesive but hardly the most compelling album he's released.
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MojoNov 19, 2014A diverting, stoner-friendly 39 minutes. [Dec 2014, p.89]
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UncutNov 11, 2014Incrementally, Yorke's resilient gifts come into focus. [Dec 2014, p.83]
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Oct 30, 2014The results may indeed be reflections of Yorke’s skill and sensitivity, but as compositions, they are self-contained and fully anticipated creations whose power to surprise or displace the listener has waned.
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Oct 17, 2014The result is a curious mix: a subtle and often beautiful record about not very much at all.
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Oct 13, 2014Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes is actually pretty good, and sometimes it’s great, but it is quiet, sounding very much like it sprung from the Internet ether to politely ask for thirty minutes of your attention.
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Oct 6, 2014As ever with Yorke's solo work, it's at its best when the loveable tyke is going with the flow instead of deliberately trying to sabotage his own ear for melody, or trying to bugger up a voice that should just make peace with the fact it's quite pretty.
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Oct 6, 2014Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes doesn’t match up to In Rainbows--it’s closer in style to 2006’s introspective The Eraser--partly because, delivery method aside, there’s little in the way of surprises.
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Oct 3, 2014At times it’s sketchy and frail, at others decidedly defiant.
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Oct 3, 2014Yorke chose a modest delivery method for a modest album, hinting that the real goods have yet to come.
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Oct 2, 2014Tomorrow... deepens on repeated listening, with Yorke locating moments of beauty and calm in the eye of his anxiety.
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Oct 1, 2014Despite the immediacy and urgency of its public genesis, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes is probably the least immediate album Yorke has been involved with to date. Like Kid A before it, it may turn out to be one of his most enduring.
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Oct 1, 2014There’s a distinct lack of choruses, and if you don’t like the rest of Yorke’s ouvre it would be kind of bizarre if this won you over. But really, if you have a tolerance for drums that go ‘fzzz’, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes is a lovely, lovely record, easily Yorke’s best non-Radiohead effort.
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Oct 1, 2014Certain elements of Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes, if given the right amount of attention, can be enjoyable to luxuriate in.
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Sep 30, 2014Yorke has written an album's worth of disarmingly straightforward pop ballads, dressed up with affectionately retro turn-of-the-century glitchcore effects.
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Sep 30, 2014Thanks to Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes, we’ve got a second dose of that Eraser sound. And yes, it’s pretty fantastic.
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Sep 30, 2014In the case of Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes, Yorke sounds as accomplished--and as natural--as he has in years.
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Sep 30, 2014Tomorrow's Modern Boxes successfully pulls off a transitional balancing act that maintains the trademark elements of a Thom Yorke release while injecting subtle moments of fresh invention that hint at new sounds to come.
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Sep 29, 2014For almost 10 years, Yorke has carved a determined, idiosyncratic path as electronic singer-songwriter. It’s just a bit disappointing that that path seems short on new directions.
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Sep 29, 2014In time, Boxes likely will be seen as belonging to Radiohead’s business-side innovations more than to its musical ones. It’s enjoyable yet slight, a hedged bet on a still-unproven concept.
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Sep 29, 2014In the end, Tomorrow's Modern Boxes is undeniably enjoyable, acting like a 2014 version of The Eraser and adding some new Thom Yorke material to your music collection never hurts.
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Sep 29, 2014Given a dearth of hooks, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes demands a decent set of headphones to appreciate its foremost asset, technical construction.... Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes disappoints most when it approximates ordinary song structures.
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Sep 29, 2014It's not a radical upheaval and it's nothing especially new--at least as far as Yorke's output is concerned-- but then it doesn't have to be; he's been pioneering an often-unique sound for so long now that I'm just happy to have some other songs to listen to.
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Sep 29, 2014Flashes of brilliance aside, the result sounds an awful lot like something Yorke dashed off to pass the time before delving into the new Radiohead album.
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Sep 29, 2014Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes is so deviously understated you wonder if it’s a sly cover for the seeding of Skynet.
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Sep 29, 2014On the new album, Mr. Yorke is both instantly recognizable and less crowd-pleasing than ever. But for anyone who’s stayed with him this far, it’s worth following him further into the murk.
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Sep 29, 2014Free of statements and the man’s desire to make every record some kind of grand manifesto, Tomorrow’s Modern Boxes is a mini-triumph that’s only occasionally tarnished.
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Sep 29, 2014It’s hardly love at first listen.... Yet across repeat plays, the album’s charms begin to unfurl.
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Sep 29, 2014Yorke’s meditations on the modern make Boxes thoroughly listenable but uneven. The album’s first half is noticeably more coherent and accessible than the challenge and trouble of the second movement.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 70 out of 87
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Mixed: 10 out of 87
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Negative: 7 out of 87
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Sep 30, 2014
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Sep 29, 2014
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Sep 29, 2014