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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
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Partie Traumatic
by Black Kids
The quintet from Jacksonville, Florida, releases its debut album produced by Bernard Butler.
| LABEL: |
Red Int/Red Ink |
| RELEASE DATE: |
22 July 2008 |
| DISCS: |
1 disc |
| GENRE(S): |
Rock, Pop |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
88
The Phoenix
The lyrics run, uh, let’s say straightforward, but Black Kids know as well as any good sentimentalists that delivery is everything; teenage yearning couldn’t hope for a much better vehicle than their pouting power pop.
83
Entertainment Weekly
Yet for all their more ridiculous tendencies, Youngblood and Co. have a real knack for crafting achingly romantic synth-pop tunes in the vein of the Cure and the Psychedelic Furs.
82
Filter
Reggie Youngblood's honest and witty dialogue of jealousy, loniness, and egotism vents interior frustrations while the other Kids synthesize sulk along the way. [Summer 2008, p.97]]
80
Spin
Kissing goodbye to the obsolete racial and gender roles that pop, hip-hop, or indie rock still demand, Youngblood and pals throw a thrillingly subversive victory party to lift the country out of eight years of anguish.
80
Observer Music Monthly
The Florida band's music is pleasingly random, too. One minute they're new romantics or dour indie kids, then, before youve had a chance to draw breath, they're apeing the Ronettes.
80
Observer Music Monthly
The Florida band's music is pleasingly random, too. One minute they're new romantics or dour indie kids, then, before youve had a chance to draw breath, they're apeing the Ronettes.
80
Urb
Black Kids' conviction and raw talent has made for a record that far outshines a majority of their blog brethren. [Jul/Aug 2008, p.84]
80
Billboard
The group's rocket ride appears to have preserved its more appealingly eccentric tendencies: frontman Reggie Youngblood's ridiculous yelp of a singing voice, for instance, or Dawn Watley's ultra-cheesy synth lines, which quote pretty much every new wave hit of the '80s.
80
Slant Magazine
Black Kids merits your attention, and Partie Traumatic is a confident, fun debut.
80
musicOMH.com
Pay no attention to the hype--after all, it didn't do Vampire Weekend any harm--and sit back and listen to one of the most purely enjoyable albums of this year.
80
New Musical Express
Partie Traumatic is the sexiest, most outrageous outright pop album of ’08 so far, hard not to love and (seemingly) even easier to lay.
80
The Guardian
Almost everything here sounds like a hit waiting to happen, equipped with a tune strong enough to be heard above the hype--or the hype about the hype or the people complaining about the hype about the hype--and memorable enough to make the idea that Black Kids will be forgotten by Christmas seem a highly unlikely suggestion
80
Hot Press
Youngbloods triumph with unpretentious pop.
80
Mojo
The space disco of 'I've Underestimated My Charm (Again)' and Listen To Your Body Tonight' are destines for repeat plays on this summer's festival circuit. [Aug 2008, p.106]
80
Q Magazine
The truth is that Youngblood writes terrific, instantly memorable pop songs, their fashionable new-wave cool rubbing against an urgent, almost disco undertow. [Aug 2008, p.141]
80
All Music Guide
Partie Traumatic is a very good debut that manages to earn a huge chunk of the hype that was thrown willy-nilly in the band's direction.
80
NOW Magazine
While they could tone down the synth on their next effort, this disc definitely lives up to the hype.
80
Paste Magazine
Moving basslines and driving, bouncy drumming run under brass backing, bright keys and group-sung vocal harmonies throughout Partie Traumatic's joyous entirety.
80
The New York Times
Black Kids’ peppy songs juggle yelpy Cure-style lead vocals, beats from the intersection of new wave and disco, wordplay (“Hit the Heartbrakes,” “I get angst in my pants”), comic synthesizer squeals and, under it all, enough ache to justify all that desperate sublimation.
75
The Onion (A.V. Club)
None of it is revolutionary, and all of it is so steeped in early-'80s new wave that it's tempting to dismiss Black Kids as mere revivalists. But their revisions have verve.
70
Village Voice
As far as eagerly anticipated debuts go, Partie Traumatic is loose and unforced in its extreme eagerness to please.
70
Blender
Youngblood's tunes are so clever it's easy to overlook the commitment to new wave it took for him to avoid wasting his love of wordplay on folk music. [Aug 2008, p.84]
70
Rolling Stone
With Brit-pop vet Bernard Butler behind the decks, these Floridians still toss out an impressive 10-song party grenade.
70
Alternative Press
The underwhelming title cut underscores the superiority of the first four Black Kids songs, but their transition from MySpace to major label is an overall success. [Sep 2008, p.162]
60
Uncut
There's some interesting things going on here.... Sadly, Bernard Butler's production often feels thin and tinny, which isn't just sad, but avoidable, too. [Aug 2008, p.92]
55
Prefix Magazine
The Black Kids may only have one trick, but as long as they only pull it at a house party, it’s the only one they’ll need.
50
Boston Globe
While there's a certain bubblegum synth-pop allure and cheeky lyrical irony in songs like 'I've Underestimated My Charm (Again),' it's hard to find ourselves being carried away on youthful pluck and preciousness alone.
50
Drowned In Sound
This debut--while not a technically poor album, boasting as it does pop hooks aplenty if you truly focus in, beyond the sometimes irritating vocal tennis--sags where it should soar, dips where it should peak.
50
PopMatters
While Youngblood fills his sardonic twinkle with playful sexual allusions and gender ambiguity, there’s too many clunky lines and rhymes-for-rhyming’s sake for Partie Traumatic to be anything more than lyrically intriguing.
40
Under The Radar
From start to finish, they slather Partie Traumatic in quirk and tirelessly recycle the scrappy sonics of 'I'm Not Gonna Teach,' playing them out until even that gem of a single loses its luster. [Fall 2008, p.79]
34
cokemachineglow
This is nothing even remotely new, but very rarely does it come off so obnoxiously, indelibly built to not be taken seriously when that’s the very action that could save these assholes from their own doom.
30
Sputnikmusic
Black Kids are trying too hard, plain and simple.
The average user rating for this album is 6.2 (out of 10) based on 33 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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