The Brutalist Bricks - Ted Leo & The Pharmacists
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Generally favorable reviews - based on 22 Critics What's this?

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Generally favorable reviews- based on 10 Ratings

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  • Summary: The Ted Leo-led rock band moves to Matador Records for its sixth album.
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 22
  2. Negative: 0 out of 22
  1. The Brutalist Bricks sounds nothing like that at all. Ted Leo is still very much in his prime, and Bricks is as relevant (and as great) a record as you'll hear in 2010.
  2. 80
    The Brutalist Bricks isn't quite the match of 2004's career highlight Shake The Streets. But "Gimmee The Wire" mixes punky, Mission Of Burma dynamics with a garrulous, troubadour storytelling, while "Bottles In Cork" unfolds as a bar-hopping travelogue as colorful as anything Craig Finn has put his pen to. [Jun 2010, p.92]
  3. After the misfire of Living With The Living this is a content, relaxed record with nothing to prove. Ted Leo is a man un-fussily playing to his strengths.
  4. The Brutalist Bricks, for its moments of torrential fury, sags when Leo occasionally writes outside of an exhausted but all-encompassing formula.
  5. In Leo’s case, it’s somehow comforting that every few years he’ll be along to inspire and cajole his fans with his dedication and passion. The Brutalist Bricks will let no one down in that regard.
  6. Despite its obvious ingredients and well-worn criterion, Brutalist Bricks comes off peculiarly fresh. There are simply not a lot of people making the same sort of music Leo is these days; his audacious conviction is so easily appreciable (and hard to recreate) that he's almost immune to diminishing returns.
  7. A perfunctory listen yields little that stands out, offering none of the instant classics that the earlier albums earwormed into steady rotation.

See all 22 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 1
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 1
  3. Negative: 0 out of 1
  1. TomP.
    Mar 24, 2010
    It's solid, with very few weak spots. Much more seamless than the jack-of-all-trades Living with the Living from 2007. Many, many solid listens here. Expand