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- Summary: Rostam Batmanglij's third full-length solo release features guest appearance by Clairo and Amir Yaghmai.
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- Record Label: Matsor Projects
- Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock
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Score distribution:
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Positive: 7 out of 9
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Mixed: 2 out of 9
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Negative: 0 out of 9
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May 15, 2026At the time of American Stories' release, striving for harmony was a rare thing. It's still a noble goal, and on these songs, Rostam achieves it beautifully.
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MojoMay 14, 2026Meticulous, inventive record. [Jul 2026, p.86]
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May 14, 2026A record of reflection and connection, it’s one that, at its best, ranks among the more beautiful-sounding you might hear this year
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May 14, 2026American Stories is just nine songs, but pretty much every centimeter is garlanded with grabby bits of sonic filigree. Yet this isn’t just a talented producer flexing his studio muscles for the sake of it.
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May 14, 2026Probably Rostam’s most compact and thematically cohesive project, with almost all of the nine tracks on the 30-minute album leaning toward folk and Americana. After the explosive energy of the first two tracks, things calm way down.
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May 15, 2026Rostam skillfully reinterprets the tropes of country and folk to draw out the complexity of his experiences, but the aesthetic around these genres ends up obscuring the weight of the social commentary the album gestures at.
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UncutMay 14, 2026Batmanglij rarely gets out of first gear, fussing through vanilla ballads like "Hardy" and "Forgive Is To Know". [Jun 2026, p.34]