Metropologan

Arguably their most sonically cohesive album, and a relatively tight tracklist, this is the start of the Phoenix we know today. Effortlessly cool in their delivery of stylish but unremarkable indie pop, there are a couple of songs here worthy of a summer soundtrack - namely 'Long Distance Call' and 'Lost and Found' - and the Strokes-indebted sound may in fact have had a hand in their success in a year where Casablancas's band embraced a heavier, less accessible sound. ... read more

A relative step up from the debut - certainly a much tighter tracklist, and clearly more time spent producing in the studio - although there's a certain sheen to the songs that deserves some stronger songwriting. There are hooks here, sure, but the album loses momentum and doesn't deliver a hit to match the debut's sticky 'If I Ever Feel Better'. The ambition of the debut is also missing, where the total absence of that album's confounding experimentation in genre ... read more

The title is ironic, surely? This album is a stylistic whiplash, moving between stylish synthpop and awkward attempts at punk, funk, and country. There's a reason that, beyond the obvious singles, not much survives from this early era of the band. Ambitious, yes, but a definitive mess.

Our ambitious young pop outsider captures the visceral anxieties and emotional whiplash of contemporary romance.

Barely a year after the explosive BLUE SUPER LOVE, Ally is back on the scene with a tighter, sillier, and equally honest album. From the careening car crash of 'Phetamines' and infectious hooks of 'Strawberry', Evenson's first singles introduced her sophomore album as a more polished but persistently experimental followup. In slightly narrowing the sonic ... read more