Will no one get these children a washcloth?

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[5.67]

Iain Mew: I’ve seen tUnE-YarDs play live and thoroughly enjoyed it, but there’s something about her records which still doesn’t click for me. There are too many ideas with too little development and without seeing the high-wire act of the songs being assembled on the spot, they just don’t get across the same kind of energy to make up for the lack of coherence. “My Country” is closer to making sense than most at least, and the fuzzy blow-out after “the worst thing about living a lie is just wondering when they’ll find out” is definitely worth something.
[5]

Jonathan Bradley: Marrill Garbus doesn’t make things easy; like so much of her work this song’s most immediate quality is a sense that it is excessively vivid. Her voice swoops and ruptures while horns honk, xylophone pings toddle about, and, on one occasion, an obtrusive bright synth line smears messily across the mix. It’s not quite sensory overload, because she allows plenty of room for the track to breathe, but the jumble of sounds ensures that nothing quite fits comfortably together. “My Country” is a song about how some people in America are poor, but other than a reference to shopping at a Salvation Army store, there’s none of the narrative cohesion required to elevate it above (thankfully rather ignorable) didacticism. A bon-bon, and one with a flavor neither familiar nor unwelcome.
[6]

Anthony Easton: As someone who owns several Salvation Army band cds, and goes to the Salvation Army Christmas concert every year, I always thought that the indie hipsters who finally understood that the glorious and holy noise of the Booths could be used for evil, or at least rock and roll, would get points in this world and the next. The tUnE-YarDs call out the Sally Ann, and they get really close, especially with some pretty tight xylophone, but they don’t go completely over hill and dale, like the Salvation Army Marching band would. Holding your fire due to some avant-garde honour is a kind of lie, and people who have heard it have not quite found out, considering how well they do at the Pazz and Jop. Are they worried they will eventually be called on the bullshit, and is it worth our effort to point out they continue to be as uninteresting as they possibly could be?
[4]

Alfred Soto: Appropriating a patriotic hymn to add sinew and muscle to a declaration of aesthetic intent is a conceptual coup. The concept itself becomes flesh with Muppet-style background vocals and tribal drums.
[7]

Brad Shoup: I hate people singing about angels guarding their bygone youth with flaming swords, I’m weary of country dudes immortalizing the same six rural signifiers, I can’t stomach the millionth song sardonically addressed to Uncle Sam… at this point, I might only accept subject matter that concerns the proper way to prepare desserts. It helps that Garbus puts the super joy to her drive-by observations. Bug-eyed synth smears, cod-xylophone, her remarkable force and range: it smuggles in a lot of medicine. No idea why the “na-na-na-na-na” chant is still musical tender, but by then it’s far too late.
[7]

Katherine St Asaph: Isn’t this pretty much what Maureen in Rent was written to make fun of? 15 years ago?
[5]