★★★★★
There is a certain level of dissonance that I love in my pop music. If you can wrap a layer of haze around a rich melody, tweak a lead instrument in an interesting way or take me down an unexpected path with your song structures, you've got me wrapped around your finger. While I have been a fan of Amen Dunes (the nom de plume of Damon McMahon) over the last few years, his new LP Love caught me off guard with how well it captures this spirit...
- www.reviler.org
2014-05-30
★★★★★
Tweet Somewhat Unrequited "Love" might be a little strong. "Like"? Maybe. Sad truth is that Amen Dunes' new album isn't really easy to get attached to. It's pleasant enough, but never gets very far beyond "inoffensive." Love - to put it bluntly - is competent, intelligently written background music. An awful lot of the blame for that can be placed firmly on the album's vocals. Amen Dunes founder and driving force Damon McMahon's lyrics are a frustrating tangle...
- www.mxdwn.com
2014-05-21
★★★★★
Everyone wants to be beyond, or at least be headed in that direction. After the ashes have blown away and civilizations have been rendered faint memories, we wanna be the one with the grim satisfaction of both clearly seeing the world's self-destruction and somehow escaping the unthinkable fate tied to it. We wanna think around our emotions, laugh about them before they become troubling obfuscations. Skip doubt and faith altogether and go straight for the full potential of naked intuition...
- www.tinymixtapes.com
2014-05-16
★★★★★
Brooklyn-based musician Damon McMahon has been steadily making music as Amen Dunes since 2006, releasing off-the-cuff, evolving lo-fi pop songs that are always weird, though never entirely inaccessible. While those albums were usually recorded over the course of a couple of weeks, sometimes in one take, his third studio album, Love, arrives as the product of nearly two years of painstaking work...
- consequenceofsound.net
2014-05-16
★★★★★
On his third studio album as Amen Dunes, Damon McMahon has created a melting pot of inviting tones rooted in the traditions of soul king Sam Cooke, the spirit of jazz's First Lady Alice Coltrane, and the romance of Motown man Marvin Gaye. Moving beyond the confines of his New York City-based comfort zone, McMahon recorded Love in Montréal with Dave Bryant and Efrim Menuck of Godspeed You...
- www.undertheradarmag.com
2014-05-14
★★★★★
As far as album titles go, Love isn't terribly original. But for the heartfelt and straightforward music Damon McMahon has been making as Amen Dunes for the past half decade, it feels appropriate. McMahon's commitment to leave his music as honest and uncluttered as possible is one of his great strengths, and with Love, his third full-length, he opens his music up to more fresh air than ever before...
- www.wonderingsound.com
2014-05-15
★★★★★
Damon McMahon, aka Amen Dunes, has long played music on the fringes. Albums like DIA and Through Donkey Jaw sounded like they were far off, music humming not just through one thin wall but perhaps many thick ones. In places, Amen Dunes sounds more like the impression of music than music itself. It hints at structure but melts at the edges. It's sweet sounding but contains sometimes all-encompassing darkness...
- www.popmatters.com
2014-05-13
★★★★★
Damon McMahon's work as Amen Dunes has been a process of expansion. The confined, loner vibe of his 2009 debut DIA sounded like it was made in a cabin in the woods - which it was--but it also hinted at wider vistas McMahon might someday explore. That promise was realized on 2011's Through Donkey Jaw, as he extended his sonic palette while retaining his introspective bent...
- pitchfork.com
2014-05-13
★★★★★
The self description of the Ethio Covers 7? from the Amen Dunes website is that it is a "downer take on three Ethiopian tracks culled from unnamed tapes." Like the Dirty Projectors Rise Above project, which found that group covering the famous Black Flag material by memory, Ethio Covers is more of hazy manipulation of songs than defined "covers...
- www.reviler.org
2012-06-14
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