Vehicles & Animals

A great record, guilelessly cheery and knowingly witty in equal measure.

Lethally simple pop tunes which sound like they were written during a particularly good seaside holiday in 1974.

Rife with an irresistible charm, sly English wit, and supremely catchy choruses. [#10, p.98]

Catchy, almost childish verses suggest the playfulness of U.S. acts like the Flaming Lips. [28 May 2004, p.127]

[A] breezy conflation of Beta Band-esque jollity, default indie guitar chime and High Llamas-style retro melody. [May 2003, p.95]

There are a batch of mighty tunes here, and a sound that, while hardly de rigour, melds some of rock's freshest, brightest lights to their own street-wise, archetypal city swagger and 'Mockney' wit.

It's all about finding the friendly turtles at the end of the druggy rainbow, yet, since no one's in a hurry to get there, the songs loop along with space between the beats and guitarists who still seem to be learning their craft.

Manages both annoyance and perfection.

Perfectly, almost aggressively pleasant.

In their insistence on trying to mix quirky, quiet electronica with beer-swilling pop, without the two informing each other, Athlete too often fall into a formulaic and predictable model.

Overall, it's refreshing to hear an album so disarmingly free of pretense... but those who like their rock with a little more edge are advised to look elsewhere. [#7]

Athlete’s sound is a wondrous discovery for young teens just getting into “chart indie” or jocks who feel open minded for listening to something a little more complicated than Oasis. For anyone else really, Vehicles & Animals only offers up a smorgasboard of odd, inventive pop music that’s only odd and inventive enough to try and sound less like everything else.

For a band that regularly draws comparisons to Beta Band and Pavement, Vehicles & Animals is all too pedestrian.

You've heard it before and frankly, you've heard it better. [Jun 2004, p.90]

Athlete's lyrical content is shockingly mundane.