By the end I started to wonder if I should rate this slightly lower, as it started to drag for me, but I think overall I really appreciate what she was doing with this album.

Found the first bit repetitive and uninteresting, though that could also be related to the style no longer being as new. Tomorrow Is a Long Time was good, but because Dylan is very good. Also I like the finger picking. Maggie May’s start was especially strong. Mandolin Wind was where the album really took off for me. Overall I much preferred the second half of the album.

I love this album. I might download more of it (right now I think I just have Dirty Boots and Kool Thing). Clearly this is a type of sound I prefer compared to yesterday’s Rod Stewart album.

Decent. Sounds nice enough but ended up using it more as background music. Initially I was going to give it 4 stars, but the deluxe edition is too much of the same stuff.

It’s annoying to have to find the songs one by one. I would be willing to buy it while I still have a car that can play CDs, but timing wise that won’t work out for the challenge. Very interesting overall. Nothing about this bores me. I do wonder about whether certain songs in particular relate to being hit by a car while riding her bike. I can’t help but wonder about the role of dissociation on this album in general, since Kristin has since spoken about being dissociated during songwriting prior to EMDR treatment. Lots of the lyrics speak to trauma and various aspects of mental illness. I didn’t expect the country influences that came up in a couple places. It gets a 4 rather than a 5 for because of the annoyance of trying to piece it together myself for this (I could buy directly from Kristin that might shift things) and because it is sort of emotionally intense with few breaks outside of songs that are on other albums anyway. Those albums can be 5s. If you’re new to the band this is certainly a good primer.

Streets of Bakersfield and Floyd County are the only ones I like. I guess straight up country isn't my thing.

Overall a fun listen.

I was expecting to like it less, to be honest. Serj sings well when he isn’t screaming. I really liked Suggestions and Spiders. I really didn’t like Mind to the point that I skipped the last third of it. I’d give it a 3.5 overall I think, but I’ll bump it to 4 for the political lyrics. My average rating is looking to be high. Maybe I should get pickier, but it isn’t happening today.

Almost a 2 for some of the stuff that really didn’t do it for me, but overall it was ok.

For the most part the songs are good, just too long.

Even before I was halfway through this album, I knew it was going to be one of my favorites so far. This is the kind of thing that makes it worth it to try listening to to a randomly assigned album every day. Not all are going to be hits, but this one certainly is. I love when an album can be so many good things at once - musically pleasant while still being interesting, lyrically meaningful, fun and something you want to move to, etc etc etc. Now I want to listen to everything else Michael Kiwanuka has made.

I was very torn on how to rate this. It’s really a 3.5 for me - I like it better than the things I have given 3s, but v not quite as much as things I have given 4s.

Very beautiful music, and very cool instrumentation, but for me there is such a thing as too many ballads. 3.5.

Maybe I am biased by really liking the last 4 songs, but I think this might be a 5 for me. I didn’t expect it because the popularity of the first three songs made them less impactful, but listening again after getting brought my initial preconceptions let me notice how many things I really enjoyed about this album.

Skin’s voice is really really good. Really cool album.

I want to like this more, but eventually this album felt repetitive. I wish I could have understood the lyrics more, because that might have helped. Overall this was like listening to a lot of beautiful and ethereal singing by haunted dolls who couldn’t really enunciate much.

Maybe I just wasn’t in a punk mood yesterday.

3.5

A fun album, but not quite my style.

Some great storytelling. Not all of it was for me, musically.

Perfect Way was lyrically interesting, but the music did absolutely nothing for me. In general, I think the issue was probably my feelings about generic 80s synth pop. The songs that were musically slightly more interesting did nothing for me lyrically. Some more boring to me on both fronts. The description says that there is preoccupation with politics in the lyrics, but that doesn’t really come across very much. Interest in words and wordplay, sure, but barely anything here seemed intensely political.

3.5 really. I think 10 years ago it would have been a 4, but I think I just don’t enjoy this style as much as I used to. Weird!

By the end I started to wonder if I should rate this slightly lower, as it started to drag for me, but I think overall I really appreciate what she was doing with this album.

This one has some real highlights and real duds. Giving it a full 4 because I liked this album more in high school.

The sound itself is really good and the production is excellent. Unfortunately, so many of the songs are a miss for me lyrically. Some really aren’t bad, but on other tracks the lyrics took away a fair amount of enjoyment. Still for the sound alone I will give it a 4. Didn’t expect to, but damn that production.

I love a lot of what Paul Simon has done, but not this. The best parts of the album were the South African performers. And they were great! But overall…mid-1980s Paul Simon is just not for me.

Really good, but not quite 5/5 for me. That might be down to the genre. But I find I can easily let it be background music, which can be nice but doesn’t say 5/5 to me. Super solid, though, and very worth listening to!

Very cool in places and more good than bad.

So so so close to a 5 for me. If this were me back when I rated my first 5, it would have been a 5. But not it is just a tiny bit under for me.