God Save may not get there quite as often as Strange Geometry or the songs collected on Suburban Light, but it does so much else right such potential shortcomings are easy to set aside.  Full text...

Sure, indie-rock fans are suckers for good songwriting. But most of the time, an indie band is notable for the way it sounds, long before the words come in. Fans can spot an Arcade Fire song long before Win Butler opens his mouth. Ditto Modest Mouse and The Hold Steady. And that goes double for The Clientele, even though it has a very different fan base from the groups above.   Full text...

God Save the Clientele is more of the same for the group’s fans, who will find the record near-faultless. There are more upbeat numbers here than the last time out: “Here Comes the Phantom” and especially “Bookshop Casanova” are modestly rollicking numbers, while “The Queen of Seville” is as good an example as any of the band’s bread-and-butter balladry.   Full text...

It shows the band both moving forward, and should be the album that finally starts to bring them proper recognition. We’ll see what actually happens and how much success they manage (at an excellent show in Washington, DC last week there weren’t more than 150 people in the audience), but here’s to hoping that such quality and consistency is rewarded.   Full text...

The Clientele have made themselves into a richer, fuller outfit, and I like them in spite of all my personal reasons not to.   Full text...

The group’s third album, God Save the Clientele, isn’t so much a divergence as an evolution, and a brightening.  Full text...

They still sound an awful lot like The Left Banke or The Zombies or Love or any other trippy, early-'60s bubblegum act (if Vietnam hadn't happened, would every band sound like this?). But, to their credit, The Clientele never really sound retro, because there's a slickness to their sound that you'd never hear in the pre-digital era.  Full text...