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Why There Are Mountains Image
Metascore
78

Generally favorable reviews - based on 13 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
7.4

Generally favorable reviews- based on 9 Ratings

  • Summary: This is the debut album for the New York rock quartet.

Top Track

...And The Hazy Sea
Do you know how many cities had been built On the mainland and the trains there How they'd glide over the marshes And the hazy sea Carrying business... See the rest of the song lyrics
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 13
  2. Negative: 0 out of 13
  1. He’s certainly not the first kid to see the death of innocence in a “maelstrom of mail-order Marlboro memorabilia,” but he might be the first to sing about it--here’s hoping that future Cymbals Eat Guitars songs wrap such observations in similarly singular packaging.
  2. Why There Are Mountains ends up being like any great result of wanderlust--here, the journey is the end not the means; fortunately, that gives Why There Are Mountains astounding replay value.
  3. CEG's debut mined the quintessentially American wells of 90s alt-rock and road-trip imagery to create one of the best first albums of 2009.
  4. Alternative Press
    80
    These clattering seat-inducers plow through both rational song lengths and all hopes of a settling conclusion. [Oct 2009, p.110]
  5. The good news is that Why There Are Mountains is polished and offers some strong songwriting while still leaving the band enough room to grow into something better.
  6. Cymbals Eat Guitars don’t get drowned in homage, however; from the first explosive note to the last, Why There Are Mountains is a routinely rewarding album, with each listen revealing great new scenery.
  7. Mojo
    60
    Leader Joseph D'Agostino drops vowels with a schizoid, Malkmus-esque charm (somewhere between a meltdown and a bong pipe), while the band see-saw between going for the jugular and a surprisingly touching melodic tinkering. [Dec 2009, p. 90]

See all 13 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 0 out of
  2. Mixed: 0 out of
  3. Negative: 0 out of