Carrier is sad, its melancholy almost oppressively palpable at times, but the Dodos refuse to wallow – if anything, Carrier is a learning experience in eleven songs.
Carrier is a joy and we have an album that’s up there with the most moving and stirring records of 2013.
Carrier is a captivating listen, and it’s The Dodos’ best effort since Visiter.
Carrier is shocking in its own context. By the Dodos’ standards, it’s an album with a dark, enveloping tone rare to their discography, one that’s certainly never wormed its way into more than a few songs.
Carrier has an inexplicable way of wedging its way into your thoughts, but its solemn themes are never wrought with emotion.
By contrasting downer themes of death/agony/alienation against an experimental angle, The Dodos cull authenticity from the ashes of heartache.
The result is a collection of songs that really soar in a way that some previous material hasn’t.
The Dodos’ tried-and-true approach and execution is far too strong and compelling to abandon, but by amending it ever so slightly on Carrier, they’ve realized something worth documenting. And it’s certainly worth listening to.
The two sides of the record sit uneasily beside each other, individually well executed but not quite congealing into the coherent sound the band is aiming for.
A bold album that takes you places
Carrier is without doubt The Dodos' most emotional and forthright album to date.
This is a cut above your average US alt.art-rock, most notably on ‘Stranger’, which sounds like The Strokes doing The Shins.
It’s the kind of record for the times when you’re lost in thought about someone you might’ve known for a little while, wondering where they are and if they ever think about you.
An initially run-of-the-mill indie album that, after some time, blooms into one of the genre's most interesting albums to come out in the last 10 years.
Unlike on their previous albums, Carrier has two main approaches that separate it from a normal indie album. The first is the abstract feel it gives off, between the often heavily-syncopated drums, and percussive guitar rhythms. This creates a very unique style that I am not used to hearing on a 2010's indie album. Usually "indie" ... read more
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