★★★★★
Perhaps why Archers of Loaf have a smallish, but extremely dedicated, fan base is that they never quite seemed to fit in anywhere. They have a certain indie sound-thick, broad, guitar lines with a dreamy texture-but they also fit nicely within the popular rock format. They'll get wild on stage, thrashing around with a punk rock energy, but not so much that they lose control...
- www.punknews.org
2013-08-22
★★★★★
In a career that was too short - until they reunited last year, at any rate - Archers Of Loaf released four albums of sublime, off-kilter indie noise. Fire are reissuing the whole lot, having started last year with the Chapel Hill band's excellent debut album, Icky Mettle. This follow-up originally came out in 1995 and remains the group's best-selling album to date...
- recordcollectormag.com
2013-04-02
★★★★★
White Trash Heroes is probably Archers of Loaf's best album. It was the biggest diversion, a large step away from their past three efforts. When the All The Nations Airports tour cycle had finished the band had choices to make and no great real desire to make them, but they knew they wanted to carry one for one more album and that it needed a different approach. So it was a mix up, with band members even changing instruments on occasions and programmed keyboards used to flesh out the sound...
- drownedinsound.com
2012-09-24
★★★★★
Archers Of Loaf have always been a band that sounds like they're wallowing, gloriously, within their own over-bearing sense of misery. Even the faster tempos of their previous two albums (Icky Mettle and Vee Vee) all created a sense of insecurity. And All The Nations Airports was to be the band's discontent album. It contained the band's most graceful sighs and also their loudest attempts to burst through their past labels...
- drownedinsound.com
2012-09-24
★★★★★
Don't let anyone who says every Pavement album is worth owning tell you that you don't need Archers of Loaf's final two albums. Til the end, these sorta-similar Carolina boys were riffier, hookier, and took their sound to farther places. To wit, the best songs on albums three and four are a creaky Waits-piano ballad ("Chumming the Oceans") and an electronic folktale that pre-dates Kid A ("White Trash Heroes"), respectively...
- thephoenix.com
2012-08-16
★★★★★
Reading the liner notes to Merge's recent reissue of Archers of Loaf's Vee Vee, one thing becomes clear: AoL was the alternative Kinks. Underappreciated despite their consistently solid songwriting and guitarwork, AoL meant a whole heck of a lot to a select few people, and they all want to remind you how this influential band did not get enough love "back in the day...
- www.punknews.org
2012-04-02
★★★★★
Along with Superchunk, Archers Of Loaf are without a doubt one of the best Indie Rock bands you've (maybe) never heard of. Existing at a time when Indie Rock actually warranted and pretty much required the capital letters; Archers Of Loaf released their debut album Icky Mettle in 1994, a time when alternative rock was fast becoming big business. As a result, they became a pretty big deal. Being at least a growing concern obviously raised a cynical streak within frontman Eric Bachmann...
- drownedinsound.com
2012-03-19
★★★★★
Greatest of all time. I wouldn't go that far but it's certainly up there. There comes a moment in every indie kid's lifetime when they give up on anything remotely mainstream and engage in a musical journey of listening to bands or singers that are different, possibly started by their cool uncle lending them a Pixies album or a friend tells them about Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds...
- www.noripcord.com
2012-03-15
★★★★★
If you caught me at the right time during the early part of the last decade, you may remember me as The Guy Who Would Argue That Archers of Loaf Were Better Than Pavement. I developed this position at a time when it was useful to a have a Thing and for that Thing to kindle debate. Garden-variety contrarianism? A little, but I was a liberal arts major on a Midwestern state university campus, and for the first time in my life the most cred-heavy rocker in the immediate vicinity...
- pitchfork.com
2012-03-06
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