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May 29, 2026This album isn’t merely an acolyte of Either / Or, Pink Moon, or Carrie & Lowell. With enough time, we may start regarding it as a peer.
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May 28, 2026Beauty Land sounds just a bit sharper than Mendez’s usual. The toy piano plinks on “I Wanna Feel Pretty” and “No Evil” ring out with a steeliness that gives Beauty Land a starker profile than his previous records, as if there were late afternoon shadows framing every rough-handed strum and blot of keyboards. The difference is subtle, but it’s unmistakable.
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Record CollectorMay 28, 2026Beauty Land has a surplus of his specialty: beautifully short, simple, sparse, bittersweet songs that seem impervious to the outside world, self-deprecatingly leaning into his personal struggles. [Jun 2026, p.102]
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MojoMay 28, 2026Just 31 minutes short, but 17 songs long, Mendez's new album sets him up as a true inheritor of Eliott Smith's broken resilience, tragic and sad, but determined to conquer whatever demons cross his path. [Jul 2026, p.84]
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May 28, 2026Mendez's gentle vignettes have carried an outsized emotional heft, but his wistful melodies are just as likely to bring listeners back.
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May 28, 2026Another winner from Mendez, with plenty of what seem simple paths that run much deeper.
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UncutMay 28, 2026Economical as he is, Mendez suggests wider musical ambitions with the light lysergic choral coda of "Mary/Dreaming" and the budget baroque of "Frog". [Jun 2026, p.33]
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May 28, 2026Whilst songs like “Everybody Wants to Be Your Friend (Except Me)” certainly venture close to Smith’s terrain, the moments when the songs are allowed more wiggle room to bloom and expand prove that Mendez has a musical identity of his own.