''No No No'' is the fourth studio album by

indie folk Indie folk is a music genre that arose in the 1990s among musicians from indie rock scenes influenced by folk music. Indie folk hybridizes the acoustic guitar melodies of traditional folk music with contemporary instrumentation. The genre has its ...

band

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

. It was released on September 11, 2015 on 4AD.Beirut: No No No
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Critical reception

''No No No'' received generally positive reviews from contemporary music 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 normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an

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score of 64, based on 20 reviews, which indicates "generally favorable reviews". Mackenzie Herd 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 ...

praised the album, stating, "Despite rhythmic vitality and the addition of optimistic trumpet and trombone, Condon's lyrics reveal a man still suffering from loss and longing. Although none of the nine songs exceed the four-minute mark, the lyrics for each are even shorter by comparison, and are often repeated for emphasis. Repetition as a rhetorical device is perhaps most evident on "Fener," on which Condon sings, "I had to know, I had to know, where you had gone," or the title track, when Condon repeats the same stanza twice over. Condon is at the heart of each song, so while a hopeful tone is central to both the music and lyrics, ''No No No'' is a portrait of a man putting on a brave face while piecing his life back together, and it's all the more engaging for it."

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

was more critical of the album, stating, "While 2011’s ‘

The Rip Tide ''The Rip Tide'' is the third studio album by the American indie folk band Beirut, released on August 30, 2011. The album debuted at No. 88 on the ''Billboard'' 200, and peaked at No. 80 a month later. The album has sold 93,000 copies in the US ...

’ was certainly more pared down in comparison to its orchestral predecessors, here Condon (who went through a divorce and hospital treatment for exhaustion before making this new record) seems to have stripped away his most intriguing tropes altogether. The corny staccato keys of ‘August Holland’ merely churn on like a

Ben Folds Five Ben Folds Five is an American alternative rock trio formed in 1993 in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. The group comprises Ben Folds (lead vocals, piano), Robert Sledge (bass guitar, backing vocals) and Darren Jessee (drums, backing vocals). The gro ...

cast-off and Condon moans aimlessly over ‘Pacheco’’s gooey synth schmaltz in search of a chorus, never quite finding the hooks to base one on."

Track listing

Personnel

* Zach Condon – vocals, piano, synthesizer (Roland, Moog Rogue, Korg, Moog Sub Phatty, Moog Voyager, juno), trumpet, organ (farfisa, pump organ), electric piano (wurlitzer), mellotron, ukulele, rhodes, celesta * Nick Petree – percussion, acoustic and electric guitar, backing vocals * Paul Collins – bass, electric guitar, double bass, organ (farfisa), backing vocals * Ben Lanz – trombone * Kyle Resnick – trumpet * Clarice Jensen – cello * Perrin Cloutier – tom tom (tom drum), accordion * Ben Russell – violin * Yuki Numata Resnick – violin

Charts

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:No No No 2015 albums 4AD albums Beirut (band) albums