- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
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The album fully delivers on the crackling promise of "Mad World" with an accomplished set of hard-won folk-rock.
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Gracious and redemptive, it is a rapt, quiescent masterwork.
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UncutGorgeously warm, forlorn and wounded. [Mar 2004, p.95]
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MojoThis is an album of winsome alt country charm, like a pleasant cousin of Ryan Adams. [Feb 2004, p.98]
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BlenderHe has a dusky, intimate voice and a weakness for overwrought lyrics. [May 2004, p.126]
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Jules’ talents lie closer to the downhome folksiness of Cat Stevens, enlivened by an eye for detail previously thought the sole preserve of Elliott Smith.
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Q MagazineThere's a gnawing gutlessness at work here, which ultimately sells him short. [Feb 2004, p.101]
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'Trading...' may be better than we had any right to expect, but the fact remains that there's nothing here that would've catapulted him to public consciousness were it not for his astuteness and the Donnie Darko connection.
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It sounds like he wrote his lyrics by taking random words out of a thesaurus.
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It's pleasant, but hardly earth-shattering, not helped by a shortfall of notable tunes.... There's just nothing here that grabs you in the same way that Mad World did.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 4 out of 5
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Mixed: 0 out of 5
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Negative: 1 out of 5
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Apr 5, 2021Just not good. Quite contrived and boringnfor the most part. And bland on top of that.
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EricCMar 20, 2007