Dividing Island, cycles through 10 tracks of lightly trippy mind-music, borrowing liberally from British soundscapers like Cocteau Twins, Simple Minds, Talk Talk, and Stone Roses, while making dreamy '80s pop hits into something strange but still catchy.  Full text...

Thematically, it's blurry, less exploring the nature of division than warily poking at it, careful not to say too much. But the record's hermetic quality founders against one piece of Lansing-Dreiden groupthink, which is surprisingly useful in parsing this album: "Lansing-Dreiden is a company that sees no distinction between art and commerce" (from the group's official website).  Full text...

The band’s new album, Dividing Island, first and foremost, is only accessible in bits and not at all concise. The difference is clear right from the creaking-wood strings in the opening track, the sort of extravagance that would have been ruled out on Triangle.  Full text...

Though not quite as arresting as 2003's The Incomplete Triangle, The Dividing Island is still by turns disarmingly woozy (''One for All''), sexily yacht-rocky (''A Line You Can Cross''), and hilariously pretentious (see, oh, most of the lyrics).  Full text...

The Dividing Island, is one of the strangest sounding records I've ever heard.  Full text...

The whole thing feels like The Alan Parsons Project drunk on screwdrivers in a gazebo on the first day of spring. If they played this album in Chicago goth club, Neo, they might attract a crowd besides the usual goombas doing shamanistic hoedowns to Siouxsie. Take a good listen, Secret Machines. This is the way to make the stoners smile.  Full text...

It’s not an awful album at face value. A few songs have some catchy melodies, and you’re bound to secretly love at least one of the styles the band presents here. Catchy tunes or not, however, I can’t imagine anyone picking this up and taking it seriously, and when that’s said for a band/collective/whatever that appears to take itself very, very seriously, the album has to be considered something of a failure.  Full text...

When it's interesting, it's interesting. But when it's not, it's unbearably unforgettable.   Full text...