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Apr 18, 2014They still have that dirty, carefree, uncompromising vibe, but on Underneath the Rainbow it’s able to be tamed, morphing into melodic garage rock that’s as catchy and easily digestible as it is rugged and in-your-face.
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Apr 14, 2014Sadly Arabia Mountain's residual nastiness and speed is pretty much gone, replaced by slow tempos and weird deviations. It's experiments with synths and disco beats that cause some of the record's truly worst moments.
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Mar 31, 2014The overall effect is dizzying--a revolving door of treatments and narrators--but usually hits the spot.
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MojoMar 21, 2014Heroic, to a degree, but they'd need to hurdle the rainbow to warrant any pot of gold. [Apr 2014, p.95]
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Mar 21, 2014The boisterous new record is filled with plenty of raucous glimpses of what has beat at the unsteady creative heart of this notoriously dubious band for over 15 unpredictable years.
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Mar 20, 2014They recorded in Nashville with the Black Keys’ Patrick Carney on seven of Underneath the Rainbow’s 12 tracks isn’t something to dismiss out of hand. But another producer is responsible for the album’s best songs.
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Mar 18, 2014Underneath the Rainbow finds the band straying from that place. Black Lips were probably the last band you’d expect to sound complacent, and now it’s becoming difficult to remember what made them so special in the first place.
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Mar 18, 2014Underneath the Rainbow shoots for crossover appeal without compromising their tried-and-true aesthetic.
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Mar 18, 2014Rainbow works best when it strikes the perfect balance between bratty abandon and silly sensitivity.
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Mar 18, 2014Seven albums in, they’re not so much shifting the formula as refining it and waiting for cult stardom to creep up on the scene.
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Mar 18, 2014It’s an uneven, but enjoyable ride.
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Mar 18, 2014By now the Lips have made peace with modern-day production techniques, but the 12 licketysplit songs on their seventh studio album still feel righteously ragged, if not downright drunk.
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Mar 17, 2014Black Lips’ spirit is as bright and brilliant as ever.
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Mar 17, 2014Underneath the Rainbow clocks in at 12 tracks, unlike Arabia Mountain’s punishing 16. Leaner does mean meaner, and with the Black lips, mean is best.
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Mar 17, 2014While the band's earlier material sounded lo-fi out of necessity, Underneath the Rainbow disappoints due to its inauthentic attempt at sounding like an album recorded long before its time.
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Mar 17, 2014The songs are too weak, the sound is too good (aka lifeless), and the album feels like a career move instead of anything real or fun.
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Q MagazineMar 14, 2014The Black Lips are on consistent and disreputable form throughout. [Apr 2014, p.104]
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Mar 13, 2014It remains to be seen whether the lack of an instantly recognisable Lips sound of their own may thwart their wilder ambitions, but they're not lacking in tunes.
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Mar 13, 2014Just when it starts to feel like the album is continuing in a high-powered vein, the Lips start sounding like they’re steering a chuckwagon.
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MagnetMar 12, 2014It's bold, colorful palette is wider and more enveloping than in the past. [No. 107, p.53]
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UncutMar 12, 2014Whether it's the ramalama of "Dorner Party," sleazy synth jam "Funny" or the brooding "Do The Vibrate," revved up and slightly ramshackle is how BL troll across this superior barroom set. [Apr 2014, p.69]
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Under The RadarMar 12, 2014Rainbow isn't the band's best record--that would be 2007's near-perfect Good Bad Evil--but it is still a damn good one, immensely listenable and accessible, while just left enough of center to keep things interesting. [Feb/Mar 2014, p.70]
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Mar 12, 2014Within what the Black Lips claim is the their most rootsy release are sly, glam-tastic details dished out with a sometimes laggard energy. It makes for an album that digs in deeper with each listen, like cool new boots trudging through mud.
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Mar 12, 2014Backed by Budos Band and Dap Kings' Tom Brenneck, and produced by the Black Keys' Patrick Carney, the band somehow remains degenerately disheveled and brilliantly bombastic in a way that belies their tightness.
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Mar 12, 2014For the most part Underneath the Rainbow lacks the acerbic wit that has underscored so much previous Lips material; there’s a handful of tracks here that really are sorely lacking in character.
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Mar 12, 2014Underneath The Rainbow is more of an assault on the ears than anything else, although that’s mostly in a good way, as the band never lose sight of the style that first brought them success.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 9 out of 13
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Mixed: 3 out of 13
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Negative: 1 out of 13
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Apr 23, 2014
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Apr 9, 2014
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Apr 8, 2014