The Waiting Room

Tindersticks - The Waiting Room
Critic Score
Based on 23 reviews
2016 Ratings: #206 / 1004
User Score
Based on 137 ratings
2016 Rank: #493
Liked by 1 person
January 22, 2016 / Release Date
LP / Format
City Slang / Label
Chamber Pop / Genre
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CRITIC REVIEWS

90
Exclaim!
The group's signature sound remains, but unorthodox arrangements and instrumentation keep things interesting.
84
Paste
The album is full of this uprooting, this sense of comfort abandoned. It’s what makes this band essential still decades past its debut.
83
A.V. Club
Though Tindersticks is no longer angling for the pure dramatic sweep of its ambitious ’90s records, it remains a unique band, maintaining a sense of creativity (and making beautiful music) while working within limited themes.
80
Pitchfork

The Waiting Room might be Tindersticks’ most subdued effort to date, but it still flashes the irreverence that enlivened efforts like The Something Rain and Falling Down a Mountain.

80
The Guardian

There is a simple, traditional pleasure in its earthy, untampered warmth – it is an album to be ingested in one sitting; the kind of immersive, intricately produced music designed to be listened to on some extravagantly priced, high-quality audio player.

80
Clash
The knack for subtlety that comes from spending one’s time occupying the spaces in between has served them well of late and is perhaps most transparently powerful on their tenth studio release.
80
The Line of Best Fit

Now in their third decade the song remains the same, but on The Waiting Room Tindersticks still sound so out of time that ironically their music feels neither dated nor futuristic, it just is. And that’s exactly how it should be.

80
The 405

The Waiting Room is Tindersticks on ravishing form. For die-hards and newcomers alike, it's hard not to be drawn in by the lush facade it creates.

80
PopMatters

Clocking in at just under fifty minutes, this is the most cohesive and engaging set the band has created. The lessons of their cinematic compositions have served the band well.

80
musicOMH

The Waiting Room is another immensely satisfying collection from a band always able – even after personnel upheavals – to explore multiple styles while remaining ineffably themselves.

80
Drowned in Sound

This is a rich, warm, comfort blanket of a record, marbled with veins of darkness and light.

70
Slant Magazine

The Waiting Room is organized around subtle cues, including a trio of minimalist instrumentals that draw a direct parallel to Tindersticks' distinctive soundtrack work.

70
AllMusic

While The Waiting Room is a mixed bag, it's far more relaxed and sure of itself than Across Six More Leap Years was.

65
Under the Radar

It's hard to find a band more moving at exploring longing, loss, and despair than Tindersticks, and The Waiting Room is such a vehicle.

60
DIY
‘The Waiting Room’ is reserved and considered, yet you still come out of the other end feeling like you’ve run the emotional gamut.
Melancoholic
65

Decent.

tha138
70

An evening in the waiting room with the Tindersticks!
What a marvelous perspective!

Doofy
84

That this is the sleepiest album of their career is impossible to deny; every song here carries the air of time winding down, whether it's last orders at the jazz bar or the final dance of the night in God's very own waiting room.

This would make for a terrible sales pitch for any band other than the Tindersticks, but in their capable world-worn hands there's never any doubt they'll succeed in delivering that familiar welcome hit of subtle sad-sacks song craft.

While 'The Waiting Room' ... read more

Melancoholic
65

Decent.

tha138
70

An evening in the waiting room with the Tindersticks!
What a marvelous perspective!

Doofy
84

That this is the sleepiest album of their career is impossible to deny; every song here carries the air of time winding down, whether it's last orders at the jazz bar or the final dance of the night in God's very own waiting room.

This would make for a terrible sales pitch for any band other than the Tindersticks, but in their capable world-worn hands there's never any doubt they'll succeed in delivering that familiar welcome hit of subtle sad-sacks song craft.

While 'The Waiting Room' ... read more

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Added on: October 6, 2015