★★★★★
Review Summary: Ought deliver a distinctly inspirational brand of post-punk on their standout debut. Even though Ought are a young art-punk outfit that only formed in the last couple of years, they've already crafted a fairly distinctive sound which juxtaposes a conversational vocal style hearkening back to the days of Talking Heads with a dissonant, high-strung guitar play and funk-echoing rhythm section both recalling the output of anarcho-punk rockers, The Ex...
- www.sputnikmusic.com
2014-05-30
★★★★★
opinion by BRENDAN FRANK
Despite forming Ought two years ago as university students, vocalist/guitarist Tim Beeler, keyboardist Matt May, bassist Ben Stidworthy and drummer /violinist Tim Keen have already cultivated a definitive identity and a vast rock vocabulary. Their debut album is a minor wonder, impeccably assimilating the angles-and-elbows art punk of the late 70s with eccentric indie acts like Wolf Parade and Parquet Courts...
- prettymuchamazing.com
2014-05-22
★★★★★
These Montreal punk upstarts establish their own sound right on their debut album - they're young men in love with their own misery, taking out all their frustrations on their instruments, until every guitar strum feels like a full-blown emotional breakdown. Lead yelper Tim Beeler commands your attention all through the six minutes of "Habit," sounding like David Byrne staring at his own reflection in the bottom of a glass, wondering how it all went so wrong so fast...
- www.rollingstone.com
2014-05-16
★★★★★
A new Montreal-based post-punk band on Constellation, you might think you know what that sounds like, but Ought distinguish themselves with a fidgety, fiery style that is a lot more direct than most of their label mates, owing more to bands like Television and the Fall than they do to Godspeed! and the like...
- us5.campaign-archive2.com
2014-05-02
★★★★★
It'll help to begin by saying that hail from a tiny Montreal scene based in Brasserie Beaubien, an ailing bar colonised by politically wired musicians. 'The Bras', now abuzz with amateur jazz and socialist noise rock, hosts graduates from the city's illegal loft party circuit (not unlike the one Grimes, Doldrums and their introvert clan popularised), among whom Ought, hip postpunks and freshly minted Constellation-signees, are but one twinkly-eyed specimen...
- www.drownedinsound.com
2014-05-01
★★★★★
Even though none of the members are Canadian, Ought are very much a product of Montreal's politically active DIY music scene, and their debut LP is heavily influenced by the charged atmosphere that took over the city during the 2012 "Printemps D'Erable" student strike and mass street protests. Claustrophobic post-punk riffs and frantic stream-of-consciousness ranting reflect the tension and earnest idealism of that historic moment, although Tim Beeler's lyrics are more poetic than didactic...
- www.nowtoronto.com
2014-04-30
★★★★★
So very rarely, a release comes along that you just can't bring yourself to dissect in simplistic terms of positive and negative constituents, blacks and whites. It might be that it leans on recognisable influences. It might be that it meanders a little on occasions, risking attention detachment. Perhaps it's not the most startlingly original collection heard in the last few weeks - but something more is driving it. It's a set of blood and bones, rattling hearts and wheezing chests...
- www.clashmusic.com
2014-04-29
★★★★★
There are plenty of moments on Montreal post-punk quartet Ought's debut album, More Than Any Other Day, that betray their immediate influences. The jittery beats and breathless vocals of standout track "The Weather Song" have the same fresh-faced optimism of the Feelies or Clap Your Hands Say Yeah doing their best David Byrne impressions...
- www.allmusic.com
2014-05-05
★★★★★
Ought are a band from Montreal on Constellation Records, which is both the most obvious and most misleading thing you can say about them. For one, they're not actually Montreal natives, or even Canadians--their collective passports list birthplaces as far-flung as New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, and Australia. Furthermore, their tetchy, talkative brand of art-punk makes them anomalies on a Constellation roster that, from the foundational releases of Godspeed You...
- pitchfork.com
2014-04-29
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