Shaking the Habitual

Submitted by Richard Norbury on 23 January 2014 - 9:24pm

Richard had to pick from MetaCritic’s Top 10 albums of the year 2013

Cover:

Artist:

The Knife

album-ID:

a_145

Nationality:

Sweden

Year:

2 013

Release-year:

0000

Num-of-tracks:

Track-listing:

A Tooth for an Eye*Full of Fire*A Cherry on Top*Without You My Life Would Be Boring*Wrap Your Arms Around Me*Crake*Old Dreams Waiting to Be Realized*Raging Lung*Networking*Oryx*Stay Out Here*Fracking Fluid Injection*Ready to Lose

Length-in-mins:

Nominator:

Bean

meeting-ID:

m_56

Now-num:

2 014

Spotify-URL:

6ngoxSUKM6u29IPtpBXOdq

Grooveshark-URL:

Shaking+The+Habitual/8636059

Short-title:

shakingTheHabitual

nominator-ID:

u_14

Meeting-date:

Tuesday, 1 April 2014

MusicBrainz-URL:

06448e12-18d8-4d52-a51f-d4c83d07ec09

Wikipedia-URL:

Shaking_the_Habitual

Spotify-link-type:

album

Metacritic-URL:

shaking-the-habitual/the-knife

Discogs-URL:

master/541362

Allmusic-URL:

shaking-the-habitual-mw0002470619

BBC-URL:

cvnv

rdio-URL:

The_Knife/album/Shaking_The_Habitual/

guest-list data

108

109

117

73

reviewed by

Glyn Lewis

New Dreams Wanting to be Realised

2-9-11

7-10-12

It's a sprawling and, at times, chaotic sound on this. The vocal style is distinctive but I find it grating. I'm also not sure about the very subdued low key atmospheric tracks dropped in occasionally that really ruin the flow of the album. They are interesting pieces on their own but are aimed at such a different listening level they should really be worked in with a lot more thought or moved onto a different album.

There are however some excitingly different and original modern, angular, electronic pop pieces, Networking and Full of Fire particularly, these are simple driven patterns where not a lot seems to happen but enough to keep them right on the money throughout. These are really exciting moments. Others do something not too dissimilar but fall flat, Fracking Fluid Injection in particular is really pretty unlistenable.

You gotta say they have tried and in places they have succeeded amazingly, but as a considered whole they probably haven't.
70

reviewed by

Matthew Baker

Mad Swedes return

Saw this album performed live twice, where it took on a new life. Ambitious, long, sometimes testing album, but always an interesting listen, pushing the accepted norms of what a band should be and do.
57

reviewed by

Neil Hornsey

2

Some very interesting and original use of samples and beats which I enjoyed, though I found the novelty didn't last after repeat listenings. They should probably have decided whether they were making a grindy electronic album, or a record of 80s style ballads, as the two don't mix at all and I found the vocal style quite dull; this album could have easily been split into two distinct ones as this version is way too long for casual listening.
50

reviewed by

Richard Norbury

Shaking the Habitual

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