Caribou Andorra CD

Dan Snaith's project, Caribou, has always displayed a great reverence for the splashy opulence of '60s psychedelic-pop. If earlier albums, UP IN FLAMES and MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS, borrowed liberally from his influences--sounding much like a panoply of carefully crafted snippets from the most blissed-out moments of pop music's past 30 years--ANDORRA polishes out the rough edges to reveal actual songs. Despite the newfound emphasis on songwriting cohesion, the album revels in deep layers of textural embellishment. Mixing in sound-collages, symphonic passages, and layered vocals, the music recalls the bold pop experimentation of George Martin and Brian Wilson. The opener, "Melody Day," combines a big-beat drum pattern with a dense but melodic wall-of-sound--rippling electronics and guitar cascade around Snaith's wispy falsetto, sounding like a throwback to both '60s garage pop and '90s shoegaze. On the album's closer, "Niobe," Snaith's perfectly constructed pop utopia unravels slightly, unveiling a fractured, inchoate wash of sound--almost as if he is trying to disclose the music's own underlying illusionism.Rolling Stone (p.90) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "Layers of flute loops, bells, drum fills and warped strings cushion Snaith's blissed-out harmonies on organized-chaos jams like 'Eli' and 'Sandy'..."
Spin (p.124) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "[F]ull of lithe vocals, swooping keyboards, distant drums, and assorted benign flashbacks."
Entertainment Weekly (p.130) - "[H]is latest plunges into the rich, organic psychedelia he's explored tentatively on past efforts." -- Grade: A-
Uncut (p.90) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "Lead single 'Melody Day' is the most striking result of Snaith's immersion in psychedelic soft-pop: it's an ultra-vivid dream of a Zombie song, blown up to epic dimensions."