''All Are Saved'' is an LP by the American indie rock artist Fred Thomas. It was released on April 7, 2015, on Polyvinyl Records in the USA. Formats were vinyl LP, CD, cassette, digital download and streaming services. While it was Thomas's eighth solo LP, it was the first to have been released on a larger scale record label and, as such, gained much more press attention than his previous CD-R and minor label releases had done to that point.

Musical style

Whilst ''All Are Saved'' retained some of the troubadour style of Thomas's earlier solo records, it also incorporated styles more characteristic of a number of his previous musical projects, including indiepop band

Saturday Looks Good to Me Saturday Looks Good to Me is an American experimental indie pop band that formed in 1999. The group is led by singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Fred Thomas (former member of His Name Is Alive). Albums by the group are know ...

and the post-rock duo City Center. Thomas's vocals on the LP were a talking point in reviews and interviews, as he incorporated a kind of speak-singing style influenced by BARR, the indie rock project of

Brendan Fowler Brendan Fowler (born 24 March 1978 in Berkeley, CA) is a Los Angeles-based musician and multi-disciplinary artist who works in photography, sculpture, and performance. He first became known for his music performances and records released under the ...

. Thematically, the lyrics dealt with death, anger and Thomas's place in the music world.

Singles

The first pre-release single to be issued was "Bad Blood". Thomas shared a stream of the track on January 28, 2015, on his Tumblr page and it was picked up by various music sites over the next few weeks. In a positive review for ''Pitchfork'', Jenn Pelly said that the "venomous" track was a break away from the style of his previous records and projects, and referred to it as "vulnerable, thick-skinned, human—clarity piercing through the clouds of one's subconscious like an all-too realistic bad dream". A second single, "Cops Don't Care Pt. 2" was released in late February and a third, "Every Song Sung to a Dog", followed at the end of March. After the album was issued, Thomas also released a promotional video for "Cops Don't Care Pt. II", which featured him playing guitar in slow motion whilst being showered with something that looks like gravel, and occasionally slapped by small children. This was premiered by ''Stereogum'' on May 12, who said of it, "In less than two minutes, 'Cops Don’t Care Pt. II' breaks your heart and puts it back together again". Polyvinyl also issued the song as one side of a split 7-inch single along with "Find Yourself" by Jacco Gardener. This was part of the label's "With Compliments" series and not put on general sale, but rather sent out with random orders from the Polyvinyl shop as a free gift.

Critical reception

''All Are Saved'' was favorably reviewed in the music press. Ian Cohen gave it a score of 8.0 on ''Pitchfork'' and said that it was "devastating and funny in ways that previous releases barely even considered, a biographical work of art capable of leveling people who have never heard of him". This positive response was typical of reviews of the album, with AllMusic, ''Paste'' and ''Under the Radar'' all following suit. It was given four stars out of five by AllMusic and was included in their "Best of 2015" end of year selection.

Track listing

References

{{authority control Indie rock albums by American artists 2015 albums Polyvinyl Record Co. albums