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Sleep Mountain, the second long-player from The Kissaway Trail, finds the Danish quintet embracing the more sweeping aspects of rock 'n' roll emotional grandeur. And, in large part, they succeed marvellously.
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But rather than ending up a bombastic mess, ‘Sleep Mountain’ knows that the devil is in the detail.
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Under The RadarYeah there's nothing new being mined here, but the band's stunning command of pop music's rich and vast vocabulary, combined with their palpable chemistry, renders this record utterly irrisisitable. [Winter 2010, p.63]
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Sleep Mountain has the emotional weight of a Boxer or a Turn on the Bright Lights, but it doesn’t quite have the tunes. That said, there’s still plenty to fall in love with here.
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What they're actually releasing is passionate, urgent, full of music that swoops with the geometric elegance of flocking birds, but shows scant evidence of original thinking.
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MojoIn merging the intimate with the majestic, The Kissaway Trail have achieved a rare, and subtle, balance. [Apr 2010, p.92]
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Q MagazineAn impressive album with lovely songs, but greater originality is needed. [Apr 2010, p.112]
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UncutBanjos, xylophones and 12-string guitars sound oddly unfolky in this context, instead taking an almost symphonic dimension on tracks like the lead single "SDP." [Apr 2010, p.88]
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Sleep Mountain lacks both the urgency and unhinged fervour of Arcade Fire and the inventive mischief of the Flaming Lips.
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Sleep Mountain's lack of originality is made worse by the fact that few of its songs actually go anywhere.
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Sleep Mountain isn’t entirely unenjoyable; its two main crimes are that it’s too safe with its simple chord patterns and unimaginative riffs, and that it’s too in thrall to the records that have inspired it.