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10.0
53332
10.0 |
Art Rocker
Shaking the Habitual is restless, it's moving forward, it has strains of Aphex and Kate Bush but it's new, fresh, exciting
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9.1
53242
9.1 |
Paste Magazine
The duo has put together a dense, disturbing world that forces the listener to adjust to their uncompromising terms
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9.1
53208
9.1 |
A.V. Club
Even the maracas sound satanic
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9.0
53212
9.0 |
Spin
They've never sounded more in tune with the materiality of sound or the sonorousness of the physical world
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9.0
53140
9.0 |
PopMatters
That’s ultimately the triumph of Shaking the Habitual, that the Knife has created a work of art that’s not just a dream waiting to be realized, but a living, breathing reality that’s waking you up to what’s possible in the wildest of imaginations
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9.0
53159
9.0 |
Consequence Of Sound
With a massive album that makes us question the way we hunger for melody, structure, and release, The Knife grapple with problems of privilege and consumption within contemporary music
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9.0
53306
9.0 |
musicOMH
If you admire The Knife’s music for its incredible unpredictability and off-the-scale inventiveness, you are likely to consider this to be at least amongst their best work yet
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9.0
53428
9.0 |
Beats Per Minute
Shaking the Habitual may be their most daunting and most cleverly incisive record to date
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9.0
53544
9.0 |
The Quietus
Texturally and musically, it's almost certainly the most diverse and sumptuously detailed record that will command the attention of the mainstream this year
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9.0
53220
9.0 |
Fact
A good deal of Shaking the Habitual’s unheimlich disruptiveness stems from never quite knowing what it is you’re hearing
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9.0
52952
9.0 |
Uncut
This duo's songs are genetic pop mutations, scampering out of control. Print edition only
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9.0
52976
9.0 |
The Fly
Astonishing
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8.5
52949
8.5 |
BBC
Silent Shout is clearly superior as a pop record and Tomorrow, In a Year is much more satisfyingly fathomable as a piece of art. Shaking the Habitual is something else, but it’s hard not to find that profoundly exhilarating
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8.5
53110
8.5 |
Under The Radar
Theirs is the place where things go bump in the night—a place where the dark side of politics and dance music meet. Easy listening this ain't
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8.5
53223
8.5 |
The 405
Still unconventional and still brilliant, The Knife may be sharing more with us than ever before, but you can't help but feel there is so much left to discover. Sheer genius
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8.4
53138
8.4 |
Pitchfork
The Knife's most political, ambitious, accomplished album, but in a strange way it also feels like its most personal
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8.3
53218
8.3 |
Pretty Much Amazing
Judicious use of the skip button to find the tracks on which Andersson’s transfixing voice is front and center, results in a much more rewarding, immediate experience.
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8.0
53162
8.0 |
DIY
Of course, it’s an album that asks as many questions as it answers. But that seems exactly the point. Is it too long? Probably. Is it worth investing your time in? Undoubtedly
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8.0
53164
8.0 |
The Arts Desk
Shaking the Habitual shares a wilfulness with Fleetwood Mac’s similarly overstuffed Tusk
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8.0
53175
8.0 |
All Music
Rawer yet more sophisticated than any of their previous music, it sounds like a skin being shed, and it's a testament to the Knife's skill that they make such formidable sounds so compelling for so long
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8.0
53213
8.0 |
State
It’s a record of many statements, one worthy of its title
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8.0
52948
8.0 |
Q
Less dazzling than Silent Shout, but The Knife still create a world like no one else's. Print edition only
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8.0
53082
8.0 |
Daily Telegraph
Takes the listener to a lot of places – instinctive, physical, detached and intellectual
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8.0
53117
8.0 |
Independent on Sunday
It's long (nearly 100 minutes), strange, disturbing, uncomfortable, challenging. But it never fails to fascinate
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8.0
53120
8.0 |
The Observer
Racked with lust, anger and urgent, quaking rhythms
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8.0
53135
8.0 |
No Ripcord
They’ve more than succeeded in bringing some colour back to pop music
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8.0
52950
8.0 |
Mojo
Brave, immersive and high-risk music. Print edition only
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8.0
52951
8.0 |
The Skinny
A disquieting and structureless piece of work that speaks of an endemic dissatisfaction with most of the systems in which we both live and make art
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8.0
52946
8.0 |
Clash
Increasingly aggressive and overtly detuned, their individual styles have collided to create something elemental, immense and unsettling
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7.0
52947
7.0 |
Drowned In Sound
In places, Shaking The Habitual sounds less like music and more like an impressionistic embodiment of deterioration and illness
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7.0
53017
7.0 |
The Line Of Best Fit
It’s unlike anything else they’ve ever done before and unlike anything you’re likely to hear again any time soon
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7.0
52958
7.0 |
NME
A fearless piece of work with its own logic, one that shears away all safety nets. Invention, stark and undiluted
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7.0
53148
7.0 |
Slant Magazine
Shaking the Habitual isn't so much "Shake Your Love" as it is Shakespeare...translated into alien biometric rhythms tapping out iambic pentameter
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7.0
53151
7.0 |
Rolling Stone
Explores even wilder styles of mordantly nutso android bleat
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6.0
53322
6.0 |
The Irish Times
The Knife are unapologetically playing for themselves
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6.0
53149
6.0 |
The Scotsman
Without a couple of perversely lengthy ambient drones which deaden the atmosphere, this album would be far less boring
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6.0
53068
6.0 |
The Guardian
There's something hugely impressive about the way this album demands your undivided attention. If you're going to get anything out of it at all, you're going to have to concentrate
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4.0
53104
4.0 |
Evening Standard
An album which, for all its cluttered clatter, lacks heart as well as focus
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