★★★★★
If there's one word to describe Glen Phillips' music, it would definitely be eclectic; throughout his post-Toad The Wet Sprocket solo career, his musical direction has changed with each album and the Secrets of the New Explorers EP continues that trend.An Americana sound on Abulum gave way to highly polished pop-rock on the criminally under-promoted Winter Pays For Summer and 2006's Mr Lemons was a more stripped back affair...
- www.ink19.com
2009-07-20
★★★★★
Glen Phillips's third solo studio release finally sees the former Toad The Wet Sprocket frontman reach his creative peak. The collection of diverse, quirky and stripped down tunes in evidence on Mr. Lemons is in sharp contrast to the overly-polished pop-rock of previous effort, Winter Pays For Summer, but its strength lies in its simplicity.The unconventional approach of recording almost live in the studio that gave Mr...
- www.ink19.com
2009-07-20
★★★★★
Phillips made his first splash as the frontman for Toad the Wet Sprocket -- a band that sounded a lot better than its Monty Pythonesque name. With Winter Pays for Summer, Phillips has made an album with a more vibrant and varied musical color scheme that, at its best, recalls a lost Crowded House album...
- www.rollingstone.com
2009-06-08
★★★★★
There was always more to Toad the Wet Sprocket than their MOR, R.E.M.-lite reputation, and a lot of that was due to their passionate, gifted singer/primary songwriter, Glen Phillips. In the decade or so since Toad broke up, he's struggled a bit to establish his own musical identity without turning his back on his old band or its fans, who now constitute most of his following...
- www.popmatters.com
2009-03-22
★★★★★
It's almost as if Glen Phillips was headlining an improv comedy show and tailored his new EP to a topical suggestion shouted by the audience. "Penis!" someone might cleverly yell, but Phillips wisely chooses "Private space travel!" for the context of his latest release, Secrets of the New Explorers...
- www.popmatters.com
2009-03-20
★★★★★
Peter Buck once called R.E.M. "the acceptable edge of the unacceptable stuff", and if this is true, then Glen Phillips's name-making '90s outfit Toad the Wet Sprocket was the unacceptable edge of the acceptable stuff. Their brand of jangly pop rock was polished enough to give them relative success with albums like Fear and Dulcinea, but just quirky and leftfield enough to make them "alternative" in marketing terms; and that, friends, is a haunted netherworld for musicians if ever there was one...
- www.popmatters.com
2008-11-11
★★★★★
Ex-Toad the Wet Sprocket frontman Glen Phillips has always sounded wiser than his years -- he was 14 when he joined the band -- so it's no surprise that his second full-length collection of solo material is as elegant as it is weighty...
- music.aol.com
2008-08-28
Loading...
