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9.0
63475
9.0 |
Loud And Quiet
It sees Joe Mount taking time to finesse the familiar into something rich and exceptional, elevating his lyrics and off-kilter music to a rarely more affecting state
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8.5
63444
8.5 |
Under The Radar
While there's undoubtedly less of a paradigm shift in their work on Love Letters, in many ways it's improved by that, allowing the group to explore more macro-subtleties in the music that was first perfected on The English Riviera
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8.0
63538
8.0 |
All Music
The work of a band willing to take pop success on their own terms and reveal a different - but just as appealing - side of their artistry in the process.
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8.0
63703
8.0 |
Beardfood
Almost naive in its straightforwardness, as sunny as Belle & Sebastian, a record that'll make you feel good
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8.0
64763
8.0 |
Fact
As with each of their previous releases, behind the gentle kinks and quirks and signifiers of indie-ness lies an utterly unique world, one which rewards (and then demands) repeat visits
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8.0
68133
8.0 |
DIY
Because its lack of slickness and idiosyncrasies are where its charm lies. It’s an album which veers between 70s gospel and primitive electro and drum machines
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8.0
63246
8.0 |
The 405
Chart domination, earnestly deserved for some time, may prove elusive yet again, but those foreboding main stages, at the biggest of festivals, surely beckon this summer
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8.0
63247
8.0 |
Clash
If ‘The English Riviera’ was Mount at his most accessible, then ‘Love Letters’ finds him at his most inventive
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8.0
63253
8.0 |
Q
The album has an almost faded, dreamlike quality. Print edition only
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8.0
63254
8.0 |
Mojo
A charming, fat-free album. Print edition only
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8.0
63278
8.0 |
Time Out
The quietly beautiful leftfield pop of ‘Love Letters’ will surely catapult them into the league they deserve to be in: the big one. Heartbreak never sounded so appealing
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8.0
63289
8.0 |
The Irish Times
Signed, sealed and delivered with a humble yet triumphant, flair
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8.0
63301
8.0 |
The Line Of Best Fit
Metronomy have stepped up from the mantle of electro-pop, and matured into the sort of band that endures. Excitingly still, they leave us with no idea where they’ll go next
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8.0
63348
8.0 |
Evening Standard
Love Letters isn’t the most cohesive of albums, but Metronomy’s musical evolution is a joy to behold
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8.0
63251
8.0 |
musicOMH
Love Letters is great. There’s potential here, and it feels like it had the ability to be a nigh-on perfect record, but for reasons obscured – probably the brick-subtle lo-fi-ness – it feels unfinished. It’s like a final draft
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8.0
63382
8.0 |
The Independent
Certainly rings the changes impressively. It’s Metronomy’s best work to date
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8.0
63428
8.0 |
NME
Charms are revealed coyly and across repeat listens
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7.5
63455
7.5 |
Pretty Much Amazing
Metronomy’s dressed-down aesthetic has always been a part of their appeal, but strangely enough, the lightness of touch here leaves Love Letters slightly out of focu
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7.0
63252
7.0 |
Uncut
They're thriving in their constant meandering - be it around a mixing desk or affairs of the heart
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6.0
63250
6.0 |
The Skinny
A heartfelt package this may be, but it lags behind their last two LPs by a Devonshire mile
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6.0
63397
6.0 |
Digital Spy
Love Letters holds back too much when it could be his masterpiece
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6.0
63378
6.0 |
The Observer
Love Letters still has a thing for boxy little drum machines, kiddy keyboards and plangent one-finger solos. But now Mount has combined these with a fresh fixation: the 60s
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6.0
63248
6.0 |
The List
It’s not that Love Letters is a bad album – far from it, it features 10 exquisitely crafted, sophisticated pop songs – it just doesn’t feel as cohesive as The English Riviera
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6.0
63716
6.0 |
Drowned In Sound
Even when it tries to confound and challenge, it’s sometimes a success. However, there’s a nagging feeling that those derivative misses aren't so much accidental misfires as born out of a writer keen to remain free of the pressures of success
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6.0
63752
6.0 |
PopMatters
Not quite a glorious failure, but more of an intermittently-glorious muddle
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6.0
63453
6.0 |
Rolling Stone
Mostly miserable on their perpetual holiday, Metronomy at least manage to let some sunshine in
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5.2
63390
5.2 |
Pitchfork
What worked for The English Riviera's mellow beachfront reveries—subdued instrumentation, placid vocals, clinical studio-band polish—doesn't stick as well when the tempo's edged back up a notch or two towards something a bit more trad-rock
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5.0
63249
5.0 |
The Music
They’ve peeled away a lot of percussive elements and pulled back the tempos greatly, but what it’s done is leave us with an album that feels naked and uncomfortable, even when the tambourine is shaking
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5.0
63606
5.0 |
The Quietus
Like a doomed relationship, Love Letters lures you in with the promise of intimacy but delivers only bafflement and disconnection
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5.0
64755
5.0 |
Entertainment.ie
Love Letters is enough to maintain the band's upward trajectory, but there's too much here that fails to leave a mark
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4.2
63399
4.2 |
Consequence Of Sound
With a few exceptions, Love Letters is a mostly unfortunate attempt to recreate the atmosphere of musically personified love letters wittily laid out in first single “I’m Aquarius”
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4.0
63416
4.0 |
The FT
The music is modest, arrested indie-pop, weakly fuelled by tinny beats, antiquarian analogue synthesisers and trembling falsetto vocals
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