It's been a week since the release of Randy Newman's Harps and Angels, and the Toronto Star, in its four-star review, calls the new album "prime Newman, a work of astonishing bravery, anger, humility and humanity ... with complex arrangements and orchestrations that elevate simple instrumentation, music-hall melodies, and vintage folk forms ... to proportions Weill and Brecht might have imagined." The Detroit Free Press deems it "a masterpiece, with brilliantly written songs that run from the satirical to the achingly sincere."
It's been a week since the release of Randy Newman's Harps and Angels, his first collection of new songs since 1999's Bad Love, and, says the Toronto Star's Greg Quill in his four-out-of-four-star review, "America's great pop music satirist, at age 64, has not only approached the bar he set 30 years ago with such classics as Good Old Boys and Sail Away, but has also, in many ways, raised it a little."
Quill calls Harps and Angels "prime Newman, a work of astonishing bravery, anger, humility and humanity," and has praise for both the lyrics and the music, which, he writes, "packs a profound musical wallop as well, with complex arrangements and orchestrations that elevate simple instrumentation, music-hall melodies, and vintage folk forms ... to proportions Weill and Brecht might have imagined."
"We had no reason to expect such masterful work from Newman at this time of his creative life," Quill contends. After having written "songs that so perfectly skewered the hypocrisy of the American dream" earlier in his career, the writer suggests that any lesser work at this later stage of the game might have been excused. In the case of Harps and Angels, though, no such apologies are unnecessary. "To our benefit," Quill concludes, "his conscience has got the better of him, and he's on fire. Welcome back."
To read the complete review, visit thestar.com.
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The Detroit Free Press gives the new album a perfect four stars as well, with reviewer Martin Bandyke calling it "a masterpiece, with brilliantly written songs that run from the satirical to the achingly sincere."
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Harps and Angels is critic's pick for the Kentucky Lexington Herald-Leader's Walter Tunis, who says the new album comprises "10 fascinating ruminations of personal and professional politics ... As pointed, funny and unsettling as Newman's songs can be, they are as arresting musically as they are lyrically."
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Patrick Varine of the GateHouse News Service says Harps and Angels finds "one of America’s most successful songwriters in top form" and describes the album as "an excellent set of songs full of sharp observation and wry political humor, wrapped in the bouncy, jumpy instrumentation of a Dixieland cabaret ..." You can read the full review at enterprisenews.com.
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The new record even made its way into Radiohead's set at Lollapalooza in Chicago early this month. Find out how and listen to an audio stream from the show at the Chicago Tribune.
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