★★★★★
That covers a lot of ground and the group's top-notch instrumental prowess guarantees the final product is always listenable and professionally performed. But diversity for the sake of it cuts both ways which creates times when the "guess what we'll try next" approach hinders these songs instead of enhancing them. Also in the Umphrey's McGee debit column are vocals that aren't particularly distinctive, melodies that can wander in search of a groove and lyrics that tend towards the obtuse...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2014-06-11
★★★★★
It's ironic that a bunch of guys who grew up worshipping Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls would make a record that their rival Detroit Pistons (nicknamed "The Bad Boys") would have loved. That's what Umphrey's McGee have here with their eighth studio album. A heavy, unapologetic, rock-and-roll exhibition from start to finish that will have speakers everywhere trembling in fear for what is the Chicago sextet's strongest work to date...
- www.relix.com
2014-06-10
★★★★★
?????????? For their eighth studio release, Umphrey's McGee set out to make a rock and roll album. Similar Skin sounds huge and clean and finds the band locked into some of their heavier material. It's the most intense album they've released yet, the result of a more focused approach. Umphrey's has never fallen into the hackneyed trap of playing great shows but making mediocre albums. Still, most listeners experience them in the live setting, so that frame of reference is unavoidable...
- www.glidemagazine.com
2014-06-06
★★★★★
ATO With fourteen years and more than 1,500 live performances under their belts, Chicago's Umphrey's McGee are proven road warriors. Despite all of the time on tour and the hundreds of original songs in their repertoire, the sextet has only released six studio albums, the latest of which is the song-oriented Death by Stereo...
- www.relix.com
2011-09-19
★★★★★
A euphoric tallboy of death metal, dance music and intricate dual-guitar acrobatics onstage, this Chicago sextet are no slouch in the studio, either. And while 2004's Anchor Drops provides a more representative introduction to Umphrey's virtuosic lilt and roar, Safety in Numbers is that rare Jam-Nation dispatch whose tunes and lyrics surpass its grooves...
- www.blender.com
2010-08-22
★★★★★
For the past year or so, I've been reading many wonderful things online about this band called Umphrey's McGee. Seems they combined the Jam band aspects along with some progressive rock elements. Just imagine combining the sounds of say, Phish with Genesis and yes. That's the basis of how Umphrey's McGee sounds. Their sound incorporates improvisations, spontaneous melodies, and extended solos that are often found in country to blues to jazz, bluegrass, funk, and rock'n'roll...
- www.geocities.com
2009-07-17
★★★★★
In the decade since they formed at Notre Dame, Umphrey's McGee have evolved from jam-band goofballs into prog-rock warriors. For their sixth studio album, the Chicago six-piece crafted their songs in the studio instead of road-testing them first, as they usually do. The results are some of their slickest and most ambitious tunes yet: "1348" mixes pulsing fake disco and arena rock with some gorgeous balladry...
- www.rollingstone.com
2009-06-08
★★★★★
"Angular Momentum" is the name of a brief improvisation here: three minutes of guitarist Jake Cinninger and drummer Kris Myers ripping in supercharged tandem, like the White Stripes high on the first Van Halen album. That title is also an apt description of the exuberant interplay connecting the tangled rhythms and pop-wise songwriting all over this Chicago-based sextet's first official live album, taped over two nights in Indianapolis last April...
- www.rollingstone.com
2009-06-08
★★★★★
When I used to read album reviews in my teen years, one of the things I always hated and I mean hated was that a lot of writers would assess artists only in terms of a pre-determined criteria and not according to the artist's individual merits. You'd get writers who were fixated on the three-minute pop tune trashing the Grateful Dead because the latter's multi-disc live sets were ostensibly "indulgent". Or you'd comes across heavy metal types who would trash pure pop artists because they...
- www.popmatters.com
2009-03-21