There’s so much to hear, all foreboding. It shouldn’t work—they went all or nothing. They got all.
Shaking The Habitual has minor drawbacks—it wastes too much time on shambling instrumentals, and a wall-to-wall rager would have been great—but this brother-sister team is still heroically alienating and giddily perverse.
While some of the abstract material here is frustratingly opaque, how many other ‘pop’ acts can you name that would have the brass cojones to drop a near 20-minute track right in the middle of their record? Astonishing.
What makes Shaking the Habitual so important is that The Knife used an important moment in their own history to truly subvert the hierarchy that both the band and the album exist in. Thankfully, they also wrote some near-perfect music in the process.
Within the album's expanse, these are moments that alternately seethe and soothe, testing and prodding both the listener's expectations and his or her patience.
At Shaking the Habitual’s core are the processes of deconstruction and reconstruction, so rare in the tradition of mostly reiterative pop music that the album feels transgressive, even though its underlying ideologies are reasonable rather than radical.
Shaking the Habitual may be their most daunting and most cleverly incisive record to date.
The album, rather than play to easy desires, trains us to sit down and listen again. It makes us wait for our rewards, luring us into extended trances only to snap us back out of them with honey-tipped uppercuts.
They've never sounded more in tune with the materiality of sound or the sonorousness of the physical world.
If you admire The Knife’s music for its incredible unpredictability and off-the-scale inventiveness, you are likely to consider this to be at least amongst their best work yet.
Shaking the Habitual is, to paraphrase the Knife’s lyrics, hard to solve, but, then again, so are the issues the Dreijers are tackling on it.
The majority of Shaking the Habitual's running time is interwoven with industrial streaks, otherworldly tones, and haunting tonal experiments. This is not totally unexpected.
Still unconventional and still brilliant, The Knife may be sharing more with us than ever before, but you can't help but feel there is so much left to discover. Sheer genius.
Shaking the Habitual is, inarguably, an achievement. It is the Knife's most political, ambitious, accomplished album, but in a strange way it also feels like its most personal
Judicious use of the skip button to find the tracks on which Andersson’s transfixing voice is front and center, results in a much more rewarding, immediate experience. The nihilistic messages and political warnings will still be there, and so will your sanity.
Of course, no-one genuinely expects something so monstrously obtuse to make much of a difference at all, but at least The Knife are still daring to believe that it could, and there is every chance that Shaking The Habitual could be at the cutting edge of a resurgent wave of socially-conscious electro-pop
Less dazzling than Silent Shout, but The Knife still create a world like no one else's.
Aggressive, experimental and often challenging, the album blends the uneasy listening of Tomorrow, In A Year with the experimental electro of their previous releases
A disquieting and structureless piece of work that speaks of an endemic dissatisfaction with most of the systems in which we both live and make art
At its most compelling, Shaking the Habitual is racked with lust, anger and urgent, quaking rhythms.
Rawer yet more sophisticated than any of their previous music, it sounds like a skin being shed, and it's a testament to the Knife's skill that they make such formidable sounds so compelling for so long.
Both heavy and cumbersome and light and uncertain, it will prove difficult for some to find an entrance to it, but once you’re inside you’ll find yourself enveloped by its bold experimentation and the stunning way they execute it. Karin Dreijer Andersson and Olof Dreijer still sound like no one else around.
Undoubtedly some fans will be cornered into pretending they like this album a whole lot more than they actually do. For others, Shaking the Habitual might leave an entirely new musical landscape etched in its wake.
Shaking the Habitual isn't so much "Shake Your Love" as it is Shakespeare...translated into alien biometric rhythms tapping out iambic pentameter.
It’s an admirable pool of ideas, thrilling noises, rare, unpredictable melodies and a huge amount of imagination but to be brutally frank, it doesn’t encourage repeat listens.
'Shaking The Habitual' is a radical gesture from an enigmatic group. As such, it will not be for everyone. Newcomers will likely be baffled. Hardcore Knife fans will hail it a masterpiece, while privately making fairly regular use of the skip button.
Shaking the Habitual will draw a line in the sand for the Knife’s fan base.
Shaking The Habitual is full of thrillingly percussive highs and brilliantly deranged vocals, but overall its anti-pop move is more typical than radical.
Shaking the Habitual's problem is that the Knife seem to have dismissed the idea of making your point concisely as merely another affectation of a decadent and corrupt society.
Shaking the Habitual is an album which, for all its cluttered clatter, lacks heart as well as focus.
If they had cut out a few of the atmospheric tracks, I would have rated it even higher. Some great tracks here, but some just aren't for me and keep it from being a truly stand out album.
In a musical landscape teeming with derivative imitations, The Knife stands as a beacon of avant-garde brilliance. Their magnum opus, 'Shaking the Habitual,' is a sonic testament to their relentless pursuit of innovation and unyielding adherence to their artistic vision. This double album is a sprawling musical canvas that defies easy categorization. It weaves together elements of synth-pop, experimental electronica, and industrial noise, creating a soundscape that is both unsettling and ... read more
pride month day 10
hmmm i definitely like this album but i’m also a bit conflicted on this album. i love the art pop songs but the ambient tracks feel bloated and unnecessary. the vocalist has a great voice and the instrumentals on the art pop songs. however, the ambient songs are just… there.
faves: tooth for an eye, full of fire, without you my life would be boring, raging lung, ready to lose
least faves: instrumental songs
Sorry fantano. This album draaaags. Anything of substance is clouded by the unfulfilled runtime.
Edit: Ok I do agree w Fantano's new opinion
1 | A Tooth for an Eye 6:04 | 94 |
2 | Full of Fire 9:16 | 91 |
3 | A Cherry On Top 8:43 | 85 |
4 | Without You My Life Would Be Boring 5:14 | 90 |
5 | Wrap Your Arms Around Me 4:35 | 85 |
6 | Crake 0:54 | 64 |
7 | Old Dreams Waiting to Be Realized 19:02 | 65 |
1 | Raging Lung 9:58 | 87 |
2 | Networking 6:41 | 81 |
3 | Oryx 0:36 | 71 |
4 | Stay Out Here 10:42 | 86 |
5 | Fracking Fluid Injection 9:54 | 74 |
6 | Ready to Lose 4:35 | 87 |
#1 | / | eMusic |
#1 | / | The Line of Best Fit |
#2 | / | The Needle Drop |
#3 | / | PopMatters |
#6 | / | Consequence of Sound |
#7 | / | Slant |
#9 | / | Dazed |
#9 | / | Spin |
#10 | / | The Wire |
#11 | / | No Ripcord |