Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Mar 22, 2013This record is fun, it’s exuberant, and it’s diverse--and yet nothing sounds unnatural or feels crowbarred in.
-
Apr 18, 2013While a few songs are leftovers from Angles and some were churned out “like the good old days” as they put it, Comedown Machine is a terrific release to The Strokes first five albums.
-
Apr 5, 2013Fans of Angles should rejoice as Comedown Machine is essentially a refined version of that album’s strengths.
-
Mar 26, 2013It’s flawed, it’s imperfect and it’s downright odd at points, but it is packed with belting tunes. Most of all, it’s fun.
-
Mar 25, 2013The Strokes' most mature music yet, Comedown Machine is a solidly enjoyable album, even if it lacks some of the band's previous spark.
-
Mar 25, 2013Comedown Machine is, essentially, The Strokes' 1980s album.
-
Mar 21, 2013Comedown Machine has done the best thing The Strokes could have done.
-
Mar 19, 2013The Strokes will never get back the raw magic of Is This It? but, with Comedown Machine, they’ve cast a different spell entirely--one that’s almost joyful.
-
Mar 18, 2013The songs here might take a little longer to unlock than their predecessors, but none of them strike a false note.
-
Q MagazineMar 18, 2013Comedown Machine is their best album since they hit perfection with their debut. [Apr 2013, p.102]
-
Mar 18, 2013They’ve returned with their most thought provoking, strange and sexiest record yet.
-
MagnetMay 10, 2013Comedown Machine may not quite hit the heights of the band's masterpiece-to-date, but it continues the band's healthy trend of finding curious new ways to twist and complicate its by-now instinctively recognizable sound. [No. 98, p.60]
-
Mar 26, 2013The elements are still there, but they aren’t fused in a way consistent with the hopes of those who foresaw The Strokes being the best rock band of our tim
-
Mar 26, 2013["Call It Fate, Call It Karma"] provides Comedown with a gorgeous, um, comedown. It’s a surprising ending to exactly the kind of record that will surprise no one--solid, energetic, and with a decent hit-to-miss ratio.
-
Mar 18, 2013On Angles, the band tossed a few tunes out that sounded like carbon-copies of their first album, but on Machine they eschew that kind of market compromise in favor of following their strange muse, even if in the end most listeners will have trouble pegging down who it sounds like.
-
Mar 26, 2013They’ve tossed a simple, solid album in our lap, thrown up the deuce and strolled out the door, take it or leave it.
-
Mar 25, 2013The risks feel warranted, even if it doesn’t result in something that’s sticky or punchy. This might explain why the album doesn’t carry a single hit.
-
Mar 21, 2013It's an LP that finds the band in complete comfort with in their place in the musical universe and willing to stretch out here and there into slightly uncomfortable postures.
-
UncutMar 18, 2013It attempt to meld guitars with '80s Europop much like Phoenix has done, to the extent that single "One Way Trigger" sounds like A-Ha. The experiment is often successful. [Apr 2013, p.78]
-
Mar 26, 2013Comedown Machine [is] reliably solid, mostly enjoyable, slightly disappointing for reasons that are difficult to articulate.
-
Mar 25, 2013There are an awful lot of ideas swimming through Comedown's 11 tracks--some familiar, others (like Casablancas' new fascination with falsetto) not so familiar.
-
Mar 25, 2013While Comedown Machine drags itself through a number of dead zones (most notably the dud pair of the title track and “50 50”), there are moments where they recapture some of what made them a great band.
-
Mar 25, 2013The deeply uncool Comedown Machine smacks of effort.... Still, the limitations of Comedown Machine's protracted diversity all come back to Casablancas, a man with wide range as a listener and extremely narrow range as a musician.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 227 out of 276
-
Mixed: 35 out of 276
-
Negative: 14 out of 276
-
Mar 27, 2013
-
Mar 26, 2013
-
Mar 28, 2013