Hold/Still

Suuns - Hold/Still
Critic Score
Based on 14 reviews
2016 Ratings: #706 / 1004
User Score
Based on 53 ratings
2016 Rank: #458
Liked by 1 person
April 15, 2016 / Release Date
LP / Format
Art Rock / Genre
Sign In to rate and review

CRITIC REVIEWS

90
Exclaim!

Ultimately, Hold/Still feels like a true progression for SUUNS — not a complete reinvention, but a distillation of what they do best.

80
Drowned in Sound
Now – three albums in – we can begin to see the same curve beginning to arc across their entire discography, with the arrival of their most restrained and finely detailed record to date.
75
Consequence of Sound

They found a home in a world of weirdness and slow down the clock so it begins to look even weirder, melding the best sounds into some color Pantone couldn’t label if they tried.

70
PopMatters

Suuns have created a record which doesn’t thumb its nose at the existential problems of listener in enjoying and listening to music, but identifies with it and mounts the only truly acceptable response: make music reflective of, and worthy of, our scattered brains.

70
AllMusic
This time out, the group seems to have a bit more of an electronic sheen than on earlier efforts, but it still feels like there's a metronome-like human heart beating inside the machinery.
70
SPIN

H/S is an experiment in creating music about strong urges in a world without joy.

65
Under the Radar

Despite its few too many twisted Thom Yorkisms, Hold/Still is a convincing attempt at making the impossibly bleak impossibly toe-tapping. 

60
DIY
Suuns’ greatest trademark is also their greatest asset – a compulsion to push ideas to breaking points, to test the limits regularly and thoroughly. That’s not to say every scribble is a masterpiece, but that there’s a hell of a lot of battered notebooks going into this.
60
Clash
‘Hold/Still’ conjures up the existential mood of floating in deep space. Lonely - but also out of this world.
50
No Ripcord

Suuns' approach to creating music leaves them with a thoroughly unnatural sound with no contemporaries, but after several listens to this one, I’m yet to build an immunity to the enormous dose of discomfort that Hold/Still administers.

Felix_96
70

7/10

good

Fav tracks: Fall, Instrument, Un-No, Mortise and Tenon, Translate, Paralyzer

Mr_Jaiva
84

Hypnotic and mysterious. Dark maze built with rock and electronica.

Kokolores
80

Reminds me to some extent of the Bowie album Low. Electronic, independent, progressive music elements cleverly mixed with strident melodies. Several attempts are needed to listen the album in one session. But once bitten off a piece you will not put it entirely away.

Purchasing Hold/Still from Amazon helps support Album of the Year. Or consider a donation?
Become a Donor
Donor badge, no ads + more benefits.
Advertisement

Track List

  1. Fall
  2. Instrument
  3. Un-No
  4. Resistance
  5. Mortise and Tenon
  6. Translate
  7. Brainwash
  8. Careful
  9. Paralyzer
  10. Nobody Can Save Me Now
  11. Infinity

Year End Lists

#27/Rough Trade
#67/PopMatters
Comments
Sign in to comment
No one has said anything yet.


Added on: January 27, 2016