All in Music
The album feels like a continuation of the business that the band started on Hackney Diamonds; at times, the quality of songs on Foreign Tongues supersedes that of Diamonds. While it is a longer album than its predecessor, it never once feels like a band at the end of the road. If anything, they seem more invigorated.
The re-recording - dubbed Count Your Blessings | Repented - vastly improves upon the quality of the track recordings and gives these songs the absolutely brutal moment in the limelight they’ve always deserved.
As a band, Muse has never been one for subtlety. Their ideas are as grandiose as their execution.
“…while the results are mixed at times, the moments that stand out really do break through the scenery and leave a lasting impact, particularly when Keem is waxing autobiographical.”
If anything, LOVE is a solid debut from an artist that is still working his way up the ladder in dance music, and there are glimpses here of potential that reach far beyond your standard dance floor club set.
“…Rodrigo’s most experimental album to date, veering away from the rock-infused pop a la Alanis Morrissette and her 90s contemporaries, going down the rabbit hole of reverb-soaked clean guitar entries that conjure images of rainy nights, chainsmoking cigarettes, and a person falling apart at the seams.”
By the time we get to “I Built You A Tower (b)”, he’s exhausted. The line “I’m learning how to live without you” sums up everything that I Built You A Tower is supposed to be: a meditation on denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Grief can take the energy out of anyone; I Built You A Tower is Death Cab For Cutie processing grief and watching it sap the life out of Gibbard in full-on stereophonic sound.
