Last Days of Wonder | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | 2006 | |||
Length | 43:23 | |||
Label | Carrot Top / Loose Music | |||
The Handsome Family chronology | ||||
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Aggregate scores | |
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Source | Rating |
Metacritic | 80/100 [1] |
Review scores | |
Source | Rating |
The A.V. Club | A− [2] |
Pitchfork Media | 6.7/10 [3] |
Robert Christgau | A− [4] |
Encyclopedia of Popular Music | [5] |
Last Days of Wonder is the seventh studio album by the Handsome Family. It was released 2006 by Carrot Top Records (North America) / Loose Music (Europe). The title is a reference to Puritan scientist and witch-hunter Cotton Mather's 1693 book Wonders of the Invisible World , which lyricist Rennie Sparks found intriguing because of what she called its "madness brimming under the surface of things." [6]
The album was well received by critics: according to Metacritic, the album has received an average review score of 80/100, based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [1] Critic Robert Christgau wrote, "At her best—which must not come easy, or they'd release more and more consistent albums—Rennie Sparks is a great American realist." [4] The A.V. Club's Christopher Bahn said that "the Sparks don't seem particularly interested in experimenting with new musical styles, but that isn't a weakness so much as an unswerving fix on what they do better than anyone else." [2]
Source: [7]
with:
The Wonders of the Invisible World was a book written by Cotton Mather and published in 1693. It was subtitled, Observations As well Historical as Theological, upon the Nature, the Number, and the Operations of the Devils. The book defended Mather's role in the witchhunt conducted in Salem, Massachusetts. It espoused the belief that witchcraft was an evil magical power. Mather saw witches as tools of the devil in Satan's battle to "overturn this poor plantation, the Puritan colony", and prosecution of witches as a way to secure God's blessings for the colony.
Stevie Wonder's Journey Through "The Secret Life of Plants" is an album by Stevie Wonder, originally released on the Tamla Motown label on October 30, 1979. It is the soundtrack to the documentary The Secret Life of Plants, directed by Walon Green, which was based on the book of the same name by Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird. It contains two singles that reached the Billboard Hot 100 charts: "Send One Your Love" and the minor hit "Outside My Window". The single "Black Orchid" reached No. 63 in the UK.
Cockahoop is Cerys Matthews' first solo album, released in 2003. It peaked at number 30 on the UK Albums Chart, spending five weeks therein.
Yellow House is the second studio album by American rock band Grizzly Bear, released on September 5, 2006, by Warp Records. Produced by bass guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Chris Taylor, the album's title refers to vocalist Ed Droste's mother's house where the majority of recording took place.
Nikola Tesla is portrayed in many forms of popular culture. The Serbian-American engineer has particularly been depicted in science fiction, a genre which is well suited to address his inventions; while often exaggerated, the fictionalized variants build mostly upon his own alleged claims or ideas. A popular, growing fixation among science fiction, comic book, and speculative history storytellers is to portray Tesla as a member of a secret society, along with other luminaries of science. The impacts of the technologies invented by Nikola Tesla are a recurring theme in the steampunk genre of alternate technology science-fiction.
Live at the Budokan is a live album by American band Chic, released on Nile Rodgers' label Sumthing Else in 1999.
The Handsome Family is an American music duo consisting of husband and wife Brett and Rennie Sparks formed in Chicago, Illinois, and as of 2001 based in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They are perhaps best known for their song "Far from Any Road" from the album Singing Bones, which was used as the main title theme for the first season of the 2014 crime drama True Detective. The band's tenth album, Unseen, was released in 2016. The band's 11th studio album Hollow, was released on September 8, 2023.
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Through the Trees is the third full-length album by the Handsome Family, released in 1998 on Carrot Top Records/Loose Music. The album has received significant critical praise, and is considered one of the band's best works.
In The Air is the fifth album released by the American band the Handsome Family. It was released in 2000 by Carrot Top Records / Loose Music (Europe) and comes as an enhanced audio CD with an additional video for the song "Amelia Earhart vs. The Dancing Bear," from Milk and Scissors.
Twilight is the sixth album by the Handsome Family. It was released 2001 by Carrot Top Records / Loose Music (Europe).
Singing Bones is the sixth studio album by the Handsome Family. It was released in 2003 by Carrot Top Records / Loose Music (Europe). It includes a cover of the folk song "Dry Bones", known from Bascom Lamar Lunsford's 1928 version on Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music. In 2014, the album received a resurgence of interest when the song "Far from Any Road" was used as the theme song for the first season of HBO's crime drama True Detective.
Honey Moon is the eighth studio album by the Handsome Family. It was released 2009 by Carrot Top Records / Loose Music (Europe).
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Salute the Majesty of Bob Wills is a tribute album by the Pine Valley Cosmonauts, released on September 8, 1998, on Bloodshot Records. It consists of the Pine Valley Cosmonauts' covers of songs originally performed and written by legendary western swing musician Bob Wills. Artists featured on the album include Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Alejandro Escovedo, Edith Frost and Robbie Fulks.
KatJonBand was a collaborative musical project between Jon Langford and Kat Ex. After collaborating on and off for decades, Langford and Ex decided to write and record songs together in 2004 after Langford performed at one of the Ex's live shows in Amsterdam. They debuted the project in 2005, touring Germany and Austria, before recording 10 songs together and releasing them as KatJonBand's eponymous debut album in 2008.
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