Albums to watch

Quiet the Room

Skullcrusher

Quiet the Room

Debut full-length album from the New York indie folk singer-songwriter Helen Ballentine

ADM rating[?]

7.7

Label
Secretly Canadian
UK Release date
14/10/2022
US Release date
14/10/2022
  1. 9.0 |   Sputnik Music (staff)

    Skullcrusher’s first album may not present a doormat saying ‘welcome’ in bold letters, but it presents one of the most rewarding sonic experiences of the year for those willing to open its undefined doors
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  2. 8.5 |   Under The Radar

    Ballentine has shed the veil of her peers’ convention here entirely, creating something quietly uncompromising, unflinchingly strange, and otherworldly. It’s beautiful, moving, and utterly beguiling
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  3. 8.0 |   No Ripcord

    Quiet the Room is a worthy addition comparable to Julianna Barwick's The Magic Place and The Innocence Mission's We Walked in Song, chamber folk reveries so entrenched in their own little worlds you can practically live inside them
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  4. 8.0 |   NME

    Trading her rootsy folk beginnings for a more widescreen approach, Helen Ballentine casts an entrancing spell on her exploratory debut album
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  5. 8.0 |   DIY

    ‘Quiet The Room’ leans heavily on folk, yet in style it embodies something entirely different
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  6. 8.0 |   Gigwise

    A brutally beautiful take on loneliness
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  7. 8.0 |   musicOMH

    A debut album not of death metal but one full of ambient, dreamy folk with gossamer light arrangements that don’t so much crush your skull as massage it gently
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  8. 7.8 |   Paste Magazine

    The debut full-length from Helen Ballentine pulls her sound closer to the kind of malevolence her band’s name would imply
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  9. 7.5 |   Beats Per Minute

    This work is truly gothic: it’s not addressing monsters or ghouls so much as it presents the listener with walls and windows that hold meaning
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  10. 7.2 |   Pitchfork

    Blending misty ambience with introspective folk songwriting, the Los Angeles artist’s full-length debut is less about specifics than the way it all smears together
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  11. 7.0 |   All Music

    While some of the record's lyrics are lost in ambiance, Ballentine's ethereal vocals are a key component of an artful sound design that, like a movie, is optimized in its full-length context
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  12. 7.0 |   Slant Magazine

    Quiet the Room isn’t without its unique charms—the ominous drones of “Lullaby in February” cast indie folk into the gloomy depths of dark ambient—and Ballentine offers copious moments of hushed self-reflection and aching sadness
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