Escape From Evil

Lower Dens - Escape From Evil
Critic Score
Based on 23 reviews
2015 Ratings: #444 / 1021
User Score
Based on 208 ratings
2015 Rank: #322
Liked by 1 person
March 31, 2015 / Release Date
LP / Format
Ribbon Music / Label
Indie Rock / Genre
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CRITIC REVIEWS

85
The Line of Best Fit

Escape From Evil is exactly as its title would have you believe, then, the story of an artist facing her demons and exorcising them.

83
Pitchfork

Hunter is a charismatic singer willing to deal in grand, sweeping gestures and also idiosyncratic specifics. Escape From Evil is a vivid world of queer retrofuturism, a wide open space that offers access the emotionality of the recent past without subscribing to its violence. 

80
PopMatters

There’s a balance between climate and movement that, with some ‘80s pop/rock/post-punk guitar styles and Hunter’s dramatic singing style, recalls early Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen, and the darker side of New Order and other Factory Records releases.

80
AllMusic

Shades of Lower Dens' minimalist past appear relatively consistently throughout the album's just over-40-minute runtime, but they tend to materialize as breaths in between bigger pop moments; empty bridges with which to either populate or tear down.

80
No Ripcord

Look past the pastel surface-level familiarity of Escape From Evil and you’ll find that no matter what tool-kit a band is equipped with, superb songwriting and refined attention to detail and aesthetics always prevail.

80
The Guardian

Hunter sounds like a hybrid of Annie Lennox and Beach House’s Victoria Legrand on a collection of songs that take a welcome detour away from Nootropics’s exploration of transhumanism and instead focus on simpler matters of the heart.

80
Exclaim!

Escape From Evil finds the band exploring simpler, more efficient song structures, and it's the closest thing to pop music they've made yet.

75
Pretty Much Amazing
The title may be a little hyperbolic, but what it lacks in realism it makes up for in groovy new-wave guitar licks, other-worldly instrumentation and production par excellence.
70
Drowned in Sound

Escape from Evil might not change the world, but it is all the more impressive because of its unexpected accessibility.

70
Rolling Stone
On this danceable set, Hunter asks for deliverance from wasted time ("Your Heart Still Beating") and lost illusions ("Sucker's Shangri-La").
70
Under the Radar

Escape From Evil is the most direct, and accessible album Lower Dens have yet made, augmenting their more experimental, Krautrock predilections with the buoyancy of brighter melodies while crafting nuanced, humanist pleas for compassion.

70
Tiny Mix Tapes

Lower Dens persist in their indelible aesthetic triumphs with Escape From Evil, another gleaming beacon of poise over posturing.

67
Consequence of Sound

Escape from Evil is the kind of stuff that locks you into a haze without ever totally separating you from the outside world, and sometimes you need that kind of mental insulation.

65
Paste

Despite her voice remaining as resonant as it’s ever been, her weaker lines are plain and unbecoming set within this synthy milieu.

60
DIY
‘Escape From Evil’ may be a surprising third act. But for listeners craving substance served side-by-side with flash, Lower Dens’ world is one worth exploring. The band may be at their most accessible, but they’re not about to make it easy.
60
NOW Magazine
With disarming lyrics about loneliness and resilience, the production choices seem to be less about placing listeners in comfortable territory and more about forcing them to confront the weighty thematic underpinning.
60
musicOMH

For the time being ... Escape From Evil feels like a case of one step forward, two steps back.

usedtobe
86

Very eighties synth influence that takes you back to The Cure, Cocteau Twins, Joy Division era. Highly reminiscent of Beach House.

SherlockMHolmes
72

It's a not quite as good beach house album

DJquarterback
NR

Haunting and perfect.

DJquarterback
NR

Haunting and perfect.

usedtobe
86

Very eighties synth influence that takes you back to The Cure, Cocteau Twins, Joy Division era. Highly reminiscent of Beach House.

75

All these tricks I've heard before.

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Added on: January 29, 2015