★★★★★
What more needs to be said about John Doe, the legendary bassist and co-singer of Los Angeles punk group X (not to mention being a film and television actor)? Not a whole lot. His music does most of the talking, and, now, nearly 25 years into a solo career side-track, we get a Best Of compilation. However, this is a unique Best Of compilation...
- www.popmatters.com
2014-06-03
★★★★★
The frontman for X and The Knitters has here looked back on his solo career in a typically lurching fashion. While there are 24 tracks included from nine different long-players, it eschews chronology to group the songs together by feel - much as in a live setlist.
- recordcollectormag.com
2014-04-24
★★★★★
We last heard from this Californian roots-rock pioneer (X, the Knitters) two years ago, with his superb collaboration with the Sadies on Country Club. That release featured cover material, but Doe's strength as a songwriter is reaffirmed on this, his eighth solo record. As usual, Doe covers plenty of ground stylistically, and he does it with energy...
- exclaim.ca
2011-10-17
★★★★★
Yep Roc Not all musicians age well. John Doe is an exception, and his rugged, if not slightly worn good looks fit his music--which can be described with the same words. There's a dust-soiled country edge to Doe's music, be it among ballads, roots rockers, blues or lullabies. But there too remains a darker edge, an inner force left from his days as a founding father through X of the Los Angeles punk movement...
- www.jambands.com
2011-09-19
★★★★★
John Doe's 10th solo album is a loose, romantic melding of pop, country and punk recorded in L.A. with long-term collaborator Dave Way. Despite the evident talent of his backup band - vocalists Patti Griffin and Jill Sobule, guitarist Smokey Hormel, bassist Don Was and Giant Sand's Howe Gelb on piano - it takes a while to get into, in part because the arrangements are often so busy that they verge on chaotic...
- www.nowtoronto.com
2011-09-12
★★★★★
John Doe's punk days might be long behind him, but there's only so much mellowing out that he's capable of. He might not be mired in drugs and desperation like he was when he sang for L.A. punks X, but he makes adult life and grown-up relations sound like worthy struggles on Keeper...
- www.pastemagazine.com
2011-09-12
★★★★★
For a working artist, success can be a curse as well as a blessing. Every time Paul McCartney steps into the recording studio, he has the Mount Rushmore-sized spectre of The Beatles looking over his shoulder. And every time Bob Dylan releases an album, he knows that critics from every magazine, newspaper, and website on the planet are going to remind him his new work can't hold a candle to Blonde on Blonde or Blood on the Tracks...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-09-05
★★★★★
Those who know John Doe as the maniacally crooning bassist from X may be surprised at how much he's mellowed with age. Dim Stars, Bright Sky, his fourth solo album, is so low-key that even the amplified instruments sound semiacoustic. And while longtime vocal foil (and ex-spouse) Exene Cervenka is gone, Doe's fondness for female harmony remains: Aimee Mann's guest vocal on the slowly aching "This Far" is a highlight...
- www.blender.com
2010-08-22
★★★★★
Grudgingly admitting that his new album might be slightly "alt.country", John Doe adds that it's "more Elliott Smith than Gram Parsons". Suffice to say that it's a collection of mostly slow-moving, often acoustic-based songs underpinned with a lingering aura of melancholy...
- www.uncut.co.uk
2010-06-19
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