Choice comment: As strange and experimental as Blake’s heavy vocal modulation might sound at the first listen, he’s no radical. -Christopher T
Choice comment: Seemingly one long song that somehow really works. -Ryan M
Choice comment: There’s so much potential for this album to completely collapse after the first two songs. -Greg W
Cut it in half, and it’s twice the album – David Goldfarb
Choice comment: St. Vincent albums have always sounded very anti-septic in the past, like music a serial killer would play for you as you’re strapped to a table, helpless. This album doesn’t sound that way, and it is, as a result, her best album by a mile. -Phil M
Choice comment: you just need to listen to this album like 100 more times, goldfarb -Lauren S
Absolutely not. – goldfarb
Choice comment: Unruly, cacophonic energy saturates all the best tracks of w h o k i l l. -Christopher T
Choice comment: Best album ever by a former cult member? -Mike I [Only if you don't include The Beach Boys. -Ed]
Choice comment: The album just has a sound that I kept coming back to this year, again and again. The acoustic guitars, squeaking with chord changes, the gentle percussion – shakers are especially prominent throughout the record – the drum machines, strings, and other keyboard sounds, were recorded and layered so well, creating a compelling, comfortable, vaguely familiar sonic backdrop. -Billy L
But for those of who keep our ears to Philly’s music scene, this was like getting the Christmas present you’ve been asking for five years straight. -David Goldfarb
Choice comment: That cheesy synth track? El Beardo is FUCKING with you. -Drew L
Really good album that it was hard for me to love. Sad Cabin Justin Vernon > Hanging out with Kanye Justin Vernon. -Kenny Pop Pop
The first time I heard this album, I wasn’t sure that I liked it, but then I found myself sitting at my computer after school and listening to it over and over again. -Aaron G
Choice comment: She plays saxophone like David Bowie, she footnotes her songs with anachronistic references, she sings with a falsetto that makes no sense. It’s haunting, it’s gory, it’s weirdly patriotic—it’s a World War I punk record. -Phil M
An epic, nostalgic, and dark tour of Britain’s wars, her empire, and her rolling hills. -Drew L
What can I say? I’m a sucker for ambitious WWI concept albums. -Mike I
As an American, I find British notions of Empire old-timey and quaint like cottages and scones, but I still like this an awful lot.
-Christopher T
Or I could just say this: after I finished that second listen, I stared into space for the next fifteen minutes, trying to understand what I’d just heard. Frightened. -David Goldfarb