Critical reception
The Globe and Mail wrote that "there's a haunting, humble beauty and oddness that runs through these songs, delicately melodic ballads full of curious little observations and apologies, surreal non sequiturs and vivid imagery." [12] The Sunday Times deemed the album a "finely wrought and stylistically consistent masterpiece," writing that "Chesnutt finally learned to write for a band, brushed drums and ringing lead-guitar lines tumbling over his simple strumming." [13] The Press-Telegram called it "deep, poignant, almost always touching, with a fine edge of bitterness, sometimes even a cunning malice." [14]
The Guardian determined that Chesnutt "does quiet tunes with loud bits and quiet tunes without loud bits, all sung in a curmudgeonly little voice, none of them amounting to a great deal." [15] The Gazette listed Is the Actor Happy? as the best album of 1995; The Philadelphia Inquirer included it on its list of the year's 10 best. [16] [17]
AllMusic wrote: "Heartbreakingly delicate folk rock arrangements are followed by crashing guitar crescendos as the perfect vehicles for taking Chesnutt's songs to places very few songwriters have been or can go." [10] Pitchfork called the album "not just arguably his finest release, but also his most extroverted ... His subject isn't just himself, but also his place among friends and amid the sprawl of the South." [11]
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