Drifters / Love Is The Devil

Dirty Beaches - Drifters / Love Is The Devil
Critic Score
Based on 20 reviews
2013 Ratings: #311 / 1115
User Score
Based on 131 ratings
2013 Rank: #70
Liked by 6 people
May 21, 2013 / Release Date
LP / Format
Zoo / Label
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CRITIC REVIEWS

86
Beats Per Minute

He’s fulfilled every promise made by Badlands and then some, and despite whatever depths of pain made such an eruption of shattered awesome possible, he’s managed not just one of the best albums of the year, but one of the most genuinely moving, as well.

84
Pitchfork

Drifters/Love Is the Devil is more robust and eccentric than anything he's ever released before.

80
Tiny Mix Tapes

The albums are two vistas from two emotional locales - Drifters being external, Love is The Devil being internal - that reflect the two facets of authentic lonerism: the perception of the stalwart nomad and the emotional derangement of permanent displacement.

80
musicOMH

As it turns out, to be confused on how to take this record is to be listening to it properly: it’s an album about confusion itself.

80
No Ripcord

While it’s certainly debatable whether or not Drifters / Love Is the Devil would work best in a more condensed, single-serving format, the two aesthetically unique yet thematically linked halves present a sort of detailed descent into madness that would be hard to pull off without the extra disc space.

80
The 405

Even without lyrics or a voice for over half the album, Dirty Beaches still affects emotions in a primitive, endearing way.

76
Paste

The gloomy and beautiful tracks on Love is the Devil may be pointing a way forward for Dirty Beaches, they may have been conceived as a spiritual complement to Drifters, or they may just be a temporary detour; whatever their intent though, their presence is a welcome addition to the Dirty Beaches catalog.

70
Consequence of Sound

More than a double album, Drifters/Love is the Devil is a pair of poignant records. Hungtai’s ideas swing rapidly from beautiful to chaotic to completely atonal.

70
DIY

Individually these would be two good albums. But as a complimentary pair they become much more. Atmospheric and emotional, experimental and personal.

70
AllMusic

Drifters/Love Is the Devil spans nearly every sound in Dirty Beaches' musical spectrum to make another strongly evocative album in Hungtai's body of work.

70
PopMatters

As tough sledding as Drifters/Love Is the Devil can be both psychically and musically, there are enough moments of enlightenment that make you more than willing to follow Hungtai wherever he goes

70
Drowned in Sound

Isolated, disparaging and ultimately self-referential, Hungtai has delivered an album that might not sit well with those in thrall to the more upbeat constructions of his previous works

60
NME

There are magic moments, but the overall effect might make you drift off rather than have you on the edge of your seat. 

55
Under the Radar

Drifters/Love is the Devil eschews Dirty Beaches' wonderful penchant for crafting fictional musical worlds. Instead, it lurches within a reality-focused album that is stuck in a noxious tar pit of remorse, nostalgia, depravity, and relational apocalypse. 

tworadishslices
80

(Original Score: 60-70)
Y'know when you first hear a record and you don't quite get it, but it intrigues you enough to want to give it another listen?
Well that is what happened with this record.
And when it clicked,
it clicked HARD.

First listens are pretty rough with me, I struggle to pay attention to a lot of albums that I listen to since my adhd can be pretty haywire sometimes. When I heard this record at first, I was fascinated by its aesthetic, but I couldn't get myself to pay attention ... read more

Houdanny
76

Loving the subtly groovy and depressive tone this album has going on, and the way it maintains it for its entire runtime has to be applauded. It's an oddball album, but a really delightful one.

95

Love Is The Devil. As good as ambient lo-fi recording, composition, and sequencing can get. Recorded in Anton Newcombe's Berlin studio, an unsung hero of this record.

95

Love Is The Devil. As good as ambient lo-fi recording, composition, and sequencing can get. Recorded in Anton Newcombe's Berlin studio, an unsung hero of this record.

Raiksheen
75

Overlooked

kidhead
93

second half (love is the devil) is one of the most beautiful things i've ever listened to...

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Added on: January 28, 2013