Now that Gnarls Barkley's Odd Couple album has been pushed up and up and up, media outlets had to scramble to pull their reviews together. Let's see what the consensus is so far:
Nate Chinin, New York Times: "Packed with arid, minor-key cinematic flourishes it hovers between a timeless form of nostalgia and a timely strain of paranoia. There's no single on the order of "Crazy," the group's breakout smash; "Run," the closest thing, is pure adrenaline... Strangely, given the unified palette and temperament, the album feels disjointed: one track doesn't pull you to the next. (Often the songs fade or fizzle out.) This may be part of the push-pull strategy, but that's not the impression given, and you can only wonder what Danger Mouse had in mind. It's a bigger mystery than the one behind Cee-Lo's more grating tracks ("Neighbors," "Open Book"), which suggest unregulated spasms of ego."
Jeff Vrabel, Billboard: "If Gnarls Barkley's debut, St. Elsewhere, was the sound of Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo Green tinkering around with the creation of their bizarre surf-pop/psychedelic hybrid monster, "The Odd Couple" is the sound of that monster escaping from the lab. It's also about a thousand times darker...and there are times when Green's quavering falsetto gets downright evil. But it seems that the more comfortable the principals get with Gnarls Barkley, the more haunted Gnarls Barkley gets. And it gets stronger, too."
Leah Greenblatt, Entertainment Weekly: "The Odd Couple, Gnarls' dense second album, is a compulsively listenable, if somber, effort. Where Elsewhere was shaded with melancholy and paranoia beneath its party-starter exterior, on Odd, the duo goes all-out apocalyptic...Odd is impeccably produced and impressively layered, an esoteric love letter to both of-the-moment studio trickery and bone-deep vintage soul. It might well let down the dance floor -- and for that Gnarls will likely pay in sales -- but it's rare that anything beat-driven reveals this much humanity, no matter how darkly expressed."
We're sold. Were you able to cop the new album? Let us know your thoughts in the comments!
