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Goodbye Small Head Image
Metascore
78

Generally favorable reviews - based on 6 Critic Reviews What's this?

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  • Summary: The latest full-length solo release from Ezra Furman was recorded in Chicago with producer Brian Deck.
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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 6
  2. Negative: 0 out of 6
  1. May 15, 2025
    90
    A textured tapestry of overwhelm that’s as desperate as it is defiant. She employs a string section across much of the record (a return to the expansiveness of 2018’s ‘Transangelic Exodus’), and yet also dabbles in sampling for the first time; with its skittish drums, eulogic cello, and haunting vocals, ‘You Mustn’t Show Weakness’ is the potent pinnacle of this new frontier. Lyrically, too, ‘Goodbye Small Head’ is some of her finest work.
  2. May 15, 2025
    80
    It may not have the single-minded focus of All Of Us Flames, or the striking ambition of Transangelic Exodus, but it’s another startling record from one of the most exciting songwriters around right now.
  3. Mojo
    May 15, 2025
    80
    Aside from Jump Out's nightmare car ride ("Cell phone's dead, neighborhood is dark/what's the plan now?"), even the occasional rockers aim for atmosphere rather than combustion, yet Furman's trademark anger and angst find a way through. [Jun 2025, p.85]
  4. 70
    Furman’s upfront picture of Goodbye Small Head is perhaps clouded by jest: “orchestral emo prog-rock record sprinkled with samples,” she writes. Yet, it’s a continued display of her marked empathy as a songwriter, trying to seize control against a rhetoric centred on exclusion. Her observational musings are even more: a sign to band together now more than ever.
  5. Uncut
    May 15, 2025
    70
    Easy listening it's not, yet there's defiance, too ("You Mustn't Show Weakness") and even transcendence ("A World Of Love And Care") before Furman ends with a posutively harrowing cover of Alex Walton's emotionally fraught "I Need The Angel". [May 2025, p.31]
  6. Record Collector
    Jul 14, 2025
    60
    While the album (understandably) feels fragile in spots - Furman's falsetto vocals in particular exude sensitivity - Goodbye Small head bolsters its serious subject matter with sturdy, gorgeous musical statements. [Aug 2025, p.103]