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DeLaughter needs to be more personal; already having a dozen people yelling at you distances the ideas they express, but emptying those ideas of any meaning isn’t the answer.
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The novelty of it all has quickly worn thin.
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Entertainment WeeklyThere's now an almost garish cast to the proceedings. [22 Jun 2007, p.71]
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BillboardThe Spree... is generally a bit more streamlined in its approach. [23 Jun 2007]
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The melodies are far more varied than on previous outings, and the sense of dynamics and balance of tension in these songs -- and the arrangements that accompany them -- are the most sophisticated this group has ever pulled off.
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The Fragile Army is an all-out orchestral and choral assault for optimism in a turbulent era, but only infrequently are the Spree's songs as memorable as their numbers.
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Given the strength of the music and the shock of the Spree’s new choice of uniform, it is too bad that there isn’t something a little bit more biting, a little bit more revelatory in the lyrics beneath that music, the soul behind the uniforms.
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The Spree remain a vital, relevant artist only for Volkswagen advertising execs and anyone who takes the last five minutes of “Scrubs” episodes too seriously.
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Such hugeness can be either exhilarating or tiresome, depending on the listener's capacity for joyful crescendos and enthusiastic shouting. But the album's most intriguing moments come when the church-choir antics are scaled back in favor of some introspection.
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The Fragile Army actually has substance—thematically, musically, and lyrically.
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The new songs are much darker.
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SpinThe Fragile Army trades the cluttered arrangements... of their first two albums for tightly focused orchestral pop with big Technicolor hooks. [Jul 2007, p.102]
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These relatively simple power-pop songs aren't always big or memorable enough to support their grand conceits.
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Together the band is starting to sound seriously heavy.
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Although the sound of 30 people making music is always going to have an uplifting edge to it, the songs here are less self-consciously happy-clappy than before.
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Under The RadarSharpened writing invests these songs with plenty of hooks, yet manageable lengths insure they never overstay their welcome, always leaving you wanting more. [Summer 2007, p.84]
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The Fragile Army is the Polyphonic Spree's most consistent album, and it thunders with an assurance that was missing from "Together We're Heavy."
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Q MagazineDespite this being their widest-ranging album, their lack of of a truly great song is ultimately frustrating. [Sep 2007, p.99]
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And there's a pleasing strand of experimentation running through The Fragile Army that, even though it could have been developed slightly further, suggests that the Spree are more than a one-trick, um, choir.
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MojoFlute and horn fight for breath alongside swampy vocals, and a heavy-handed rock bombast doesn't hide a dearth of hooks or memorable pop melody. [Sep 2007, p.110]
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There's plenty of interest here, then--but is anyone still listening?
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The baroque lyrics on "Light to Follow" prove to be one of the album's defiantly interesting moments, but these are too scattered to offer much new to the casual listener.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 25 out of 29
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Mixed: 2 out of 29
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Negative: 2 out of 29
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jyotirmayadasDec 14, 2007
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AmurabiM.Nov 11, 2007
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OmarC.Aug 27, 2007