Tortoise Standards

3.5 stars out of 5 - "...These instrumentals flirt with structure more intently than [they] have in the past....To be smart and original, playful and provocative - these are the standards...they achieve here as ingeniously as ever."
7 out of 10 - "...Somewhere between the album we've been waiting for Eno to release since MY LIFE IN THE BUSH OF GHOSTS and the album we wish Phish would stop releasing altogether....a cohesion of styles and impulses so tight we might call it originality..."
"...A thing of strange beauty, with melodies and sensations slipping in and out of focus. It's mood music for post-post-moderns..." - Rating: B+
4 stars out of 5 - "...Somewhere between Zappa at his most playful and the smarter end of prog-rock with lots of post-rock oddness naturally, this is the Tortoise record you can recommend to your more staid friends without losing them."
Ranked #16 in AP's "25 Best Albums of 2001".
4 out of 5 - "...Makes the most of [their] intellectual side...without ever losing sight of the music's ability to do more than engage the mind....The environment is controlled and precise, but the atmosphere is relaxed and alive."
"...Like Herbie Hancock wandering through the '80s, all lost at the jazz-fusion supermarket..."
Ranked #27 in Wire's "50 Records of the Year 2001".
4 out of 5 - "...Technically precise it may be, but the emotional pay-off in tracks like 'Black Jack' and 'Eden 1' shatters those 'math-rock' preconceptions in precisely 2.76 seconds."
"...Sounding like an organic band again, molding jazz-rock grooves, abstract interplay and conceptualist post-isms into a sound so comfortably relaxed, recognizable and...fun, you'd never think anyone could accuse them of being overly intellectual..."
3.5 stars out of 5 - "...Highly palatable anthems boasting syncopated rhythms, crunching fuzz-toned guitars and meaty analog electronics..."
Included in Mojo's "Best Underground Albums of 2001".
"...Finds the group playing with more intent and imagination - and sounding better - than ever before..."
7 out of 10 - "...Like Stephen Hawking doing that physics experiment with springs and a clamp stand..."