★★★★★
Singer songwriter Amos Lee has a pleasant and soulful voice. When he sings of the sweetness of life, you can feel his high. When he croons about the pain, the ache comes through clearly, even though in both cases Lee accomplishes this through subtle vocal intonations. It's the aural equivalent of an arched eyebrow or the wiping of a single tear. The pleasures of Lee's music can best be found through an appreciation of his singing...
- www.popmatters.com
2013-10-23
★★★★★
Tweet Up On the Mountaintops Wait. Is this really the same guy who sang "Colors"? Amos Lee has changed--what was once "folksy soul" has taken a decided turn for the former. Not that we're complaining; Mountains of Sorrow, Rivers of Song, Lee's fifth studio album, is a well-paced, artfully-produced record. Add an ensemble cast of musical collaborators, and an undeniably brilliant singer/songwriter in Lee, and you've got something truly special. Did we mention the collaborators...
- www.mxdwn.com
2013-10-19
★★★★★
?????????? Amos Lee's latest record, Mountains of Sorrow, Rivers of Song, is a testament to the fact that there are artists out there who know what a true Americana record is, critics and fans be damned. It's more than a genre and it's more than a mood created by a certain set of generally accepted sounds you expect to hear on an Americana record--depending on what your definition of an Americana record even is--it's an exploration of the American experience and those things which are...
- www.glidemagazine.com
2013-10-16
★★★★★
There's just something soothing about Amos Lee's voice that makes listening to his music such a pleasure. His previous full-length album, 2011's Mission Bell was his first Billboard Hot 200 Albums chart-topping record and if what's contained on the album is indicative of anything, Mountains of Sorrow, Rivers Of Song is poised to join that album high up on the charts...
- www.roughstock.com
2013-10-10
★★★★★
Amos Lee's rustic Americana is no more authentic than the slick pop he's marketed against. If anything, it's often less distinctive, stitched together from melodies so sweet and clichés so noncontroversial that his ramblin'-man protests - times are hard and he's a stranger in this world - dissolve into the sepia-toned air like fine dust. Things pick up on the second half of Mountains of Sorrow, Rivers of Song, when Lee lets some of his manners slide, but only a little bit...
- www.rollingstone.com
2013-10-08
★★★★★
With his dusty voice and populist Americana, more real and current than the more retro-leaning members of the oeuvre, Amos Lee straddles the real estate staked out by Levon Helm, Little Feat and John Prine. In his songs, wonder isn't wide-eyed, but knowing--and that makes the emotional charge more resonant...
- www.pastemagazine.com
2013-10-08
★★★★★
Lee's fifth album opens with "Johnson Blvd.," a collection of slow-moving images of America's recent economic and social decay. The song sets a dour tone, which is slightly picked up by the ensuing banjo-driven "Stranger," casting Lee back in his familiar role as a lonesome drifter. Unfortunately, it's one he's never been able to pull off convincingly. While the music on alternates between these mournful ballads and hootenanny stomps, there's a hollowness that just can't be ignored...
- exclaim.ca
2013-10-05
★★★★★
On much of Philadelphia singer-songwriter Amos Lee's past efforts, his soulful voice and understated guitar playing were obscured underneath layers of poppy instrumentation and high-polish production, making for songs pleasing to the ear, but not indicative of his potential as a musician. Recorded at Calexico's studio in Arizona, Lee's fourth record, Mission Bell, begins to make up for the grit Lee's earlier records lacked...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2013-04-25
★★★★★
In fact, by pulling out variously r&b-equipped big guns this time around-like producer Don Was, guitarist Doyle Bramhall, Jr., keyboardist Spooner Oldham, bassist Pino Palladino and drummer James Gadson, the latter of which also appeared on 2005?s Amos Lee-Lee has achieved some of his smoothest moments yet. "Won't Let Me Go" and "Jails and Bombs"-each with Lee's falsetto and Palladino's particularly velvety touch on bass-are cases in point...
- www.americansongwriter.com
2013-04-25
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