Today’s blurbs are brought to you by the letters…
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[6.50]
Alfred Soto: I enjoyed her first solo album, and how her thick voice complemented the carefully wrought but standard rock arrangements. But I’m not sure what Friedberger’s doing on what the press release calls an “anthemic theme song” for a video game. What a plod, effects-treated guitar and all.
[5]
Patrick St. Michel: Potential lyrical landmines: counting, saying the days of the week, singing the alphabet. In the wrong hands, all of this sounds deeply lazy and like a local-access Sesame Street. Credit to Eleanor Friedberger for daring to give the ABCs a shot and come out the other side with a funny line (“I got lots of letters”) and an overall solid song, one which gets especially woozy in the homestretch.
[7]
Thomas Inskeep: Tough, sharp rock that reminds me of the late ’70s, along the lines of Richard Thompson at his most tuneful. Had “City” been written thirty-five years ago, Linda Ronstadt would’ve covered it on Mad Love.
[8]
Natasha Genet Avery: What could have been a peppy track is squandered by its creator’s ambition: two minutes in, “False Alphabet City” unexpectedly veers into a bland spoken word breakdown followed by an ill-advised and underdeveloped key change in the outro.
[5]
Will Adams: It’s a knotty lyric, but Friedberger is relaxed enough to avoid getting tangled. The arrangement pads along, as if worried about tripping at every turn; the bridge allows room to breathe.
[6]
Brad Shoup: It’s genial: the guitar chime has a pleasant timbre (warm, decaying at the edges, pushed to the sides); Friedberger has her small jokes and her sticky lines. It struts.
[8]