Score! 20 Years Of Merge Records CD

Audio Mixers: Christopher Walla; Justin Burrill; Alex Aldi; Joel Hamburger; Mark Spencer; Mike Mogis; Ohad Benchetrit; Phil Palazzolo; Sean Flora.
Recording information: A.R.C. Studios; Annie Clark's Studio; Bloomfield, NJ; Chapmantown Studios; Columbus, OH; Dub Narcotic Studio, Olympia, WA; Durham, NC; Electric Lady Studios, New York, NY; Giant Studios; GodelString; Golden Gate Studio, Benton Harbor, KY; Hotel Congress, Tucson, AZ; Jens' hotel room, London, England; Private Ear, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada; Tape Kitchen, Brooklyn, NY; The Magic Shop, New York, NY; The Wonder Chamber.
Featuring 20 songs from the influential North Carolina label's two-decade history--as covered by bands unaffiliated with but influenced by their roster--SCORE! mostly lives up to its exclamatory title. While artists like St. Vincent and The National give passionate renditions of more obscure tracks like Crooked Fingers' "Sleep All Summer," this collection's value will ultimately be derived from an individual listener's connection to the original source material. That said, it's hard to avoid goose bumps at Les Savy Fav's twitchy, faithful homage to Superchunk's "Precision Auto" or Times New Viking's noisy re-imagining of Arcade Fire's modern-day classic, "Neighborhood #1."Rolling Stone (p.68) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "The bands get to work with enthusiasm: Okkervil River turn East River Pipe's 'All You Little Suckers' into a dreamy, electro-fied slow dance..."