|
ANXIETY ALWAYS REVIEWS TOP 20 OF 2003 -URB "Adult. can take pride in the fact that they made one of the most electrifying albums of 2003." -AMG "'Anxiety Always' raises the barcode by several notches. You should, obviously, buy this album -it will make your life better." -Bang "Herein lies the brilliance of ADULT.,'Anxiety Always' is frightening, yet it will always hold your attention and, like a good horror movie, you will be left wanting more at the end." -Outburn "Tracks like 'Shake Your Head' and 'Turn Your Back' are anything but pleasant, seemingly more influenced by KMFDM and Minor Threat than chirpy synth bands. -CMJ "Truly
a musical hybrid, Adult.'s dark-wave seems to be as attractive to Goths
as it is to hardcore punks." "The music, a soundtrack to films much seedier than the ones Soft Cell watched..." -Magnet "As
the title of this new album implies, the duo is restlessly pushing it's
music forward: 'Anxiety Always' is by far the group's rawest, toughest
work... The conflation of pristine beats, Miller's distorted bass and
guitar, and Kuperus' aggressive yet deadpan vocals -part school marm,
part Ilsa, 'She Devil of the SS' -makes for textural interplay that
transcends any single electronic genere." "Creepy, yes, but it's a happily unpleasant Adult. sound you'll return for again and again." -BPM Culture "...their songs are like nothing you've heard before. Fans will smile, knowing that ADULT. have once again turned the tables on their expectations and given them a brand-new listening experience." -See Magazine "If
you dig the music but choke on hype, 'Anxiety Always' is the album for
you. Fridgid and hard, lonely and hypnotic, it's less pop oriented than
2001's excellent 'Resuscitation'... Riding the line between irony and
ice both musically and socially -Adult. is ahead of it's time."
"Detroit's Adam L. Miller and Nicola Kuperus specialize in harsh, unforgiving music which makes few concessions to the dancefloor. The duo instead deploy queasy synth textures and primitive beats, recalling the early brutalist electro of Throbbing Gristle, The Normal, and Cabaret Voltarie. ADULT. deserve respect if only for making an almost overwhelmingly vicious album that succeeds on it's own unreasonable terms." -Uncut "This is harsher, dirtier, and more brutal ADULT., one more concerned with the visceral rush of live punk rock than electro-funk. To put it simply, ADULT. rock." -iDJ "'Anxiety Always' is a triumph of punkish spirit, an album that embraces creeping horror like an uncomfortable blanket." -NME "They've been making their gritty, agro noir wave long before the current crop of new wave revisionists, and 'Anxiety Always' demonstrates how their style owes less to outward trends than it's own narrative structures, complete with isolationists lyrics, tropes of violence, techno fetishism and of course Nicola Kuperus' creepy/funny photographs." -The Wire "Adult.
were here before all the pretenders, rocking!" "The evil drum machine and synth army they've mobilized are like modern Cabaret Voltaire and strike against the willful banality of peers like Ladytron and Miss Kitten. Best is Kuperus' frantic repetition of 'People You Can Confuse' on a track of the same title-the scattered words change like a Steve Reich melody, while a wave of low end rumble and spooky beats drop all around. Her voice, soaked in reverb or distorted to a monotone, recalls the expressions of the late Frank Tovey (Fad Gadget) -paranoid and entirely repulsed." -Mojo "...an Adult. CD may not 'get the party started' at your typical frat house or beach volleyball game, but for some, it's just what the doctor ordered." -Northern Light Online "It's tempting to call it one of the most messily brilliant things we'll see all year, but it can't, in good faith, be recommended to everyone: if the duo's buzzy neurosis was enough to drive some people nuts before, the raw jumping and nagging of 'Anxiety Always' will sound to many like the shoddiest, most amusical sham to be held up as a masterpiece in many of our lives. No joke: this album would annoy all hell out of some of you, would sound like everything cruel about music wrapped into a single package whose creators seem actively proud that they couldn't care less. But if you're at all ready to run with it, you might find yourself in one of the more fun positions music lovers can get into: wondering for ten minutes whether you're hearing an embarrassing wreck or a stroke of genius, and then realizing in an ecstatic flash that it is so the latter." -Pitchfork
|
