- Record Label: File 13
- Release Date: Mar 30, 2004
- Critic score
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- By date
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Unfortunately, the strings and horns rarely do much more than add a thin layer of dressing to the rather plain lettuce of the songs beneath.
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The Silent League weave lush musical tapestries with a real humility at heart, preventing themselves from ever taking this orchestral deal too seriously, while remaining focused just enough to produce an album of stunning sonic quality.
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MagnetIt's not only the supremely crafted song structures that give this album its classic feel but also the trickery-free production and Russo's slightly grayed tenor. [#64, p.107]
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The Silent League sounds pretty, but their gooey emotional stuff doesn't run very deep.
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Sublime and spacey, delicate and dramatic.
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Because every note is perfectly placed, and the contemplative mood sustained throughout, it's hard to notice the lack of originality and occasionally pedestrian songwriting.
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It’s hard to fault an album for being too much of a good thing, but there it is. Songs like “Goliath”, “Glass Walls” and “Linus” just blend together. By the end you no longer look forward to another swooping, disheartened melody, you want variety of any kind.
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The Orchestra's more stripped-down songs are its most effective, possibly because, with just guitar, piano, bass and drums, they give the melodies and vocal hooks more room to breathe.
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MojoA splendid corollary to Mercury Rev's 1998 pastoral masterpiece, Deserter's Songs. [Jan 2005, p.94]
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There's a decidedly reigned-in grandeur to the orchestrally-focused Silent League. The strings and things are never allowed to get overly carried away in their stratospherics, the slide guitar and saw are supplied in delicate veins rather than employed in over-styled extravagance.
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UncutIf the piano melodies lapse into sameness, Russo sprinkles John Barry and Carpenters motifs on top to keep it trembling. [Feb 2005, p.74]
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Q MagazineReserve space and time for it. [Feb 2005, p.104]
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Throughout ‘The Orchestra, Sadly, Has Refused’ runs the coherent theme of creeping, haunting lullabies, and that furrow which sees The Silent League ultimately master their own unique beauty.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 3 out of 3
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Mixed: 0 out of 3
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Negative: 0 out of 3
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lisamApr 21, 2005wow