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9.0
31608
9.0 |
AU Review
A band with a definite and lovely skill, and it’s etched into every one of their perfectly-formed tunes
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8.0
31214
8.0 |
The Skinny
Few other modern outfits can create pop music so haunting and distinctive with such basic and familiar tools
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8.0
31372
8.0 |
Slant Magazine
The Drums are far too clever a band to suffer a sophomore slump, but Portamento does one better, dispelling any notion that they're merely the flavor of the month
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8.0
31250
8.0 |
Uncut
They only really have one kind of song and tempo, rollicking yet melancholy, but they write them very, very well. Print edition only
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7.4
32239
7.4 |
Pitchfork
Sounds and feels like a smaller, more intimate album than last year's self-titled predecessor
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7.0
32366
7.0 |
PopMatters
Portamento will charm you, hug you, haunt you and yes, sometimes baffle you
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7.0
32737
7.0 |
Rave Magazine
Once you are saturated in the album and you become familiar with its nuances, the diversity becomes refreshing
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7.0
31649
7.0 |
NME
It’s best to look at ‘Portamento’ as a marker of the potential brilliance that album three could bring
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7.0
31722
7.0 |
God Is In The TV
It’s not the seminal album The Drums could be capable of making but things seem to be on the right track
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7.0
31764
7.0 |
Consequence Of Sound
So, what’s the issue here? Outside of a few iconic moments – for the band, not in the history of rock ‘n’ roll, people – there’s far too much of the same zipper-lined guitar work and push-play percussion
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7.0
31215
7.0 |
Entertainment.ie
The Drums rarely stray too far outside of their comfort zone, but that's not particularly a bad thing
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6.9
32168
6.9 |
Beats Per Minute
While it displays a more mature and focused sound for The Drums, the album eventually crumbles beneath the weight of its influential stilts
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6.0
34455
6.0 |
State
At times...it succeeds spectacularly where The Drums debut didn’t
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6.0
32994
6.0 |
The Line Of Best Fit
Here we have a band who in a short amount of time since arriving into the music industry’s conscious are already trying to grow
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6.0
31625
6.0 |
Drowned In Sound
Leaves little to the imagination in terms of diversity or variety except to say that many of the songs here sound like a continuation of what came before on The Drums, only marginally inferior
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6.0
31220
6.0 |
BBC
An even more stripped-out sound, even when electronics are sometimes thrown into the mix
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6.0
31245
6.0 |
Clash
Much of what was great with their debut is merely repeated here
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6.0
31247
6.0 |
Q
Their debut might have triggered suspicion, but with Portamento. you don't want to take your eyes off The Drums for all the right reasons. Print edition only
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6.0
31430
6.0 |
The Skinny
On the surface, Portamento is a collection of summery tracks and it appears to be more complex and darker than its debut. But dig a little deeper and there isn't much there
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6.0
31505
6.0 |
Evening Standard
It's all a bit too one-paced, apart from the moody electronics of Searching for Heaven
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5.5
31850
5.5 |
Bowlegs
We had expected a few more chances to be taken and a little more progress to have been made – but they haven’t and there isn’t – which is a bit of a shame
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5.0
32017
5.0 |
The Quietus
That stripped-down sound feels more like emptiness
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5.0
32022
5.0 |
A.V. Club
If this is what happens when The Drums gets personal, maybe it should go back to working the crowds
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4.0
31557
4.0 |
The Observer
Each lovelorn and drear ditty seems to blend into the next
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4.0
31251
4.0 |
Mojo
Even in indie-synth-retro-post-punk-pop, you gotta have soul. Print edition only
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4.0
31488
4.0 |
The Independent
An album promising far more than it delivers
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4.0
31495
4.0 |
The Guardian
Like last year's debut, this employs repetition and deliberate naivety, but it's starting to sound disingenuous
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4.0
33279
4.0 |
No Ripcord
Download the first few songs and shelf it and its appallingly bad album art
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3.3
32352
3.3 |
Pretty Much Amazing
There actually isn’t a single terrible song on Portamento. Yet, the accumulated momentum of one critically botched song after another makes the whole seem so much worse than its parts
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