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The Age Of Miracles Image
Metascore
63

Generally favorable reviews - based on 9 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
7.8

Generally favorable reviews- based on 5 Ratings

  • Summary: The latest album for the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter features Vince Gill and Alison Krauss as guest singers.

Top Track

Holding Up The Sky
I found myself between two places neither of them home I could not recognize the faces I've never felt so alone... so alone I found myself between... See the rest of the song lyrics
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 9
  2. Negative: 1 out of 9
  1. Her 10th studio album, "The Age of Miracles" (and second on Rounder following a run with Columbia that yielded five Grammy Awards), adds a familiar yet essential new chapter to her rich catalog.
  2. Mary Chapin Carpenter doesn't sound especially concerned with how much product she'll move on The Age of Miracles; instead, she's made an album that speaks with honesty and clarity about the mysteries of love and fate, and she communicates well enough that it's hard to imagine anyone who has ever thought about the ways life can turn on a dime not being moved by the beauty of this music.
  3. Carpenter remains one of the most thoughtful writers around, but lately she's been reluctant to leave her musical comfort zone.
  4. Q Magazine
    60
    Emphathetic, female-friendly and always one step removed from the Nashville machine, Carpenter brought a welcome touch of class to country music in the early '90s. Though she's nowhere near the force of yore, those same attributes shine through on The Age of Miracles. [Jun 2010, p.132]
  5. If there’s not any huge shift from the album’s stylistic composition, at least it rarely sounds homogenous or monotonous. Still, at times, one wishes Carpenter would take more sonic risks or ditch some of the New Age metaphors that can sound frivolous.
  6. Those songs are all fine enough for what they are, but they don't offer any significant variations on the meditations on love and aging that Carpenter has released for the better part of two decades.
  7. Carpenter’s weepy soul-searching makes The Age of Miracles feel like a cheap copy of the genuine introspection that made her previous records so intriguing.

See all 9 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. Apr 16, 2016
    9
    This entry by the always interesting Mary Chapin Carpenter is like a well of stress relief, so calming and melodic. The lyrics are of aThis entry by the always interesting Mary Chapin Carpenter is like a well of stress relief, so calming and melodic. The lyrics are of a story-telling nature and the albums structure is well-suited to full listen-thrus, from track 1 all the way through track 12, not a stinker in the bunch. Expand