Crooked doors

"On the aforementioned songs and more, drummer Evan Diprima and Parsonz start things off low and slow, tethering a cathartic buildup to a hook that subsequently pops its head out from prettier psychedelic scenery. It gets formulaic, to say the least. An intriguing, though ultimately unsuccessful exception arrives with closing two-fer "The Bear I" and "The Bear II", an exercise in stylistic restraint that frames Parsonz's heart-wrought singing in pianos and violins, rather than guitars. While this feels like the perfect launching-off point for a solo venture, it's an underwhelming closing statement, too vague to do the band's personnel and their creation story justice".

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"Even with the brakes tapped at midtempo, the band casts a powerful spell, and the evocative two-part closer "The Bear" is as heartbreaking as it is spare. After pounding along on the dashboard to the epic seven-minute opener "Time Machine," the nervy, slide-driven "Glow," and the gritty and propulsive "Floor," it comes as a shock to hear everything stripped away to the bare essentials, but the song's relative austerity manages to convey the obstinate ache that accompanies the end of a relationship better than anything else on the album".

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