''At Weddings'' is the debut

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

by American musician

Tomberlin Sarah Beth Tomberlin (born April 6, 1995), known mononymously as Tomberlin, is an American contemporary folk musician and singer-songwriter based in Louisville, Kentucky. Early life Tomberlin was born in Jacksonville, Florida, but moved five di ...

. It was released on August 10, 2018, under

Saddle Creek Records Saddle Creek Records is an American record label based in Omaha, Nebraska. Started as a college class project on entrepreneurship, the label was founded by Mike Mogis and Justin Oberst in 1993 (as Lumberjack Records). Mogis soon turned over his ...

Critical reception

''At Weddings'' was met with "universal acclaim" reviews from critics. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, this release received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 82 based on 14 reviews. Aggregator Album of the Year gave the release a 80 out of 100 based on a critical consensus of 17 reviews. Writing on behalf of

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

, Marcy Donelson said: "Tomberlin's brittle vocals are accompanied mainly by acoustic guitar with touches of keyboards and strings on an album that features performances by only the songwriter and producer Owen Pallett." Chris Gee of

Exclaim! ''Exclaim!'' is a Canadian music and entertainment publisher based in Toronto, which features in-depth coverage of new music across all genres with a special focus on Canadian and emerging artists. The monthly Exclaim! print magazine publishes 7 ...

explains how Tomberlin navigates her new release "with little more than guitar, keyboards and a reverberating soft power that meticulously frees herself from the burden of a defined path." At

The Line of Best Fit ''The Line of Best Fit'' is an independent online magazine based in London, concentrating on new music. It publishes independent music reviews, features, interview, and media. Founded by Richard Thane in February 2007 and currently edited by P ...

, Craig Howieson explains: "Guarded and beautifully measured, At Weddings has an absorbingly intimate quality. Lonesome reverberating guitars ricochet off the sparse percussion while tempered piano lines chime and assuage. Whether it be the swathes of white noise on "Tornado", the yowl of feedback on "Self-Help" or the rudimental piano line on sublime opener "Any Other Way" each embellishment hangs as if it were a carefully placed decoration. Above all of this Tomberlin's voice shines as the warm heart of the record."

Accolades

Tracklist

Personnel

Musicians * Sarah Beth Tomberlin – primary artist, vocals, guitar Production *

Owen Pallett Michael James Owen Pallett (born September 7, 1979) is a Canadian composer, violinist, keyboardist, and vocalist. Under their erstwhile moniker of Final Fantasy, Pallett won the 2006 Polaris Music Prize for the album ''He Poos Clouds''. Pallet ...

– engineer, mixing, producer * Paul Gold – mastering

References

{{Authority control 2018 debut albums Saddle Creek Records albums