★★★★★
Still almost solely known for their once unavoidable wuss-rock anthem Runaway Train, it's hard to believe that Soul Asylum were supporting playerd in the Minneapolis alt. rock scene of the 80s (along with The Replacements and Hüsker Dü) and even created a highly credible ramshackle punk'n'roll album of their own with 1988's Hang Time...
- recordcollectormag.com
2013-04-02
★★★★★
There's always been something bewildering about Soul Asylum's rise to fame in the '90s, and Soul Asylum itself seemed the most bewildered. The multiplatinum success of 1992's Grave Dancers Union--and its ubiquitous, Grammy-winning hit, "Runaway Train"--came 10 years into the band's career, well after its better-known Minneapolis contemporaries, The Replacements and Hüsker Dü, had broken up during failed attempts to court the mainstream...
- www.avclub.com
2012-07-19
★★★★★
"I blow it out of proportion, make it loud beyond distortion," Soul Asylum singer Dave Pirner avows late on The Silver Lining, but only in a song rightly called "The Great Exaggerator". Pacific, calm, and tepid to the core, The Silver Lining in truth engulfs a platitudinal blandness in plodding adult-contemporary chord changes, to little discernable effect. As comebacks go, it makes one long for the relative glory days of 1998's universally ignored Candy From a Stranger...
- www.popmatters.com
2011-01-20
★★★★★
Soul Asylum were always one of those bands - with one foot tangled on their Hüsker Dü and Replacements-style middle-American punk-pop roots and the other one running after shameless populists like the Goo Goo Dolls - that could go either way...
- www.hour.ca
2010-11-23
★★★★★
This three-disc set collects the two albums Soul Asylum recorded for A&M Records—Hang Time (1988) and And the Horse They Rode in On (1990)—along with a live recording from that era. In ways, the set highlights the reason for the band's popularity and its lack of commercial success. The live tracks embody the band's charms—loose, spirited performances, nutty covers, and the feeling that if you had a band, it would be like Soul Asylum and you, Dave Pirner and Dan Murphy could hang out...
- www.offbeat.com
2010-11-02
★★★★★
In 1997, Soul Asylum performed at a prom to cheer up the kids in flood-ravaged North Dakota. After a decade-long career as punk rockers, they'd recently changed gears with the mid-tempo hit "Runaway Train," and though they were then (and briefly) the kings of alternative nation, they took the high school gig seriously ? for one night, they transformed from meticulous alt-rockers to a fast and loose bar band...
- www.blender.com
2010-08-22
★★★★★
Soul Asylum's newest album, The Silver Lining,, is not a great record. It will not put them back on the map, after being gone for nearly a decade. It will not make them more relevant or win back some of that indie cred they may have lost in' the early 90s, what with the ubiquitous hits "Runaway Train" and "Misery." But that's not the point. The Silver Lining, isn't for new fans; hell, it might not even be for old fans. No, this one is for the band...
- www.nudeasthenews.com
2009-07-28
★★★★★
No text for this review; see http://robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-cg90/grades-90s.php.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-17
★★★★★
No text for this review; see http://robertchristgau.com/xg/bk-cg90/grades-90s.php.
- www.robertchristgau.com
2009-07-10
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