Love's Crushing Diamond

Last updated

Love's Crushing Diamond
Love's Crushing Diamond (Front Cover).png
Studio album by
ReleasedOctober 7, 2013 (2013-10-07)
Genre
Length31:49
Label Soft Eyes (re-released by Other Music Recording Company)
Mutual Benefit chronology
Love's Crushing Diamond
(2013)
Skip a Sinking Stone
(2016)

Love's Crushing Diamond is the debut studio album by American band Mutual Benefit. It was originally released as a limited edition 250 LP run by Soft Eyes on October 7, 2013. Other Music Recording Company re-released the album on a larger scale on December 3, 2013. The album was recorded on the road and at Ohm Recording Studio in Austin, TX, Temporary Autonomous Zone in St Louis, MO, and Thee Hallowed Sound Dungeon in Boston, MA.

Contents

Critical reception

Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
SourceRating
Metacritic 84/100 [1]
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [2]
Consequence of Sound Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svg [3]
Drowned in Sound 8/10 [4]
Exclaim! 9/10 [5]
Mojo Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar empty.svg [6]
NME 9/10 [7]
Paste 8.9/10 [8]
Pitchfork 8.4/10 [9]
Rolling Stone Star full.svgStar full.svgStar full.svgStar half.svgStar empty.svg [10]
Uncut 8/10 [11]

Love's Crushing Diamond received widespread acclaim from contemporary music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 84, based on 18 reviews, which indicates "universal acclaim". [1]

Ian Cohen of Pitchfork praised the album, stating, "Love’s Crushing Diamond is not folk in the escapist sense either, though it was recorded during a “year of notable absences” in San Diego, Austin and Boston. Many of these songs take place in mundane, unglamorous locales—city trains, mining towns, cornfields, motel rooms. And in Lee's point of view, you need to discover a little space within those places that you can call your own and then invite some people to share it with. Yeah, it does skew kinda hippie, as Lee’s lyrics detail picking roses by the lake and how a river can’t help but keep on keepin’ on. That’s perfectly fine within the scheme of Love’s Crushing Diamond, which always sounds populated in a way that stresses its central themes of getting your own shit together so you’re better prepared to care for someone else." [9]

Track listing

All tracks are written by Jordan Lee.

No.TitleLength
1."Strong River"3:00
2."Golden Wake"3:16
3."Advanced Falconry"5:05
4."That Light That's Blinding"4:03
5.""Let's Play"/Statue of a Man"3:36
6."C. L. Rosarian"5:40
7."Strong Swimmer"7:09
Total length:31:49

Personnel

Main personnel
Additional personnel

References

  1. 1 2 "Love's Crushing Diamond Reviews". Metacritic. Archived from the original on December 7, 2013. Retrieved December 13, 2013.
  2. "Love's Crushing Diamond - Mutual Benefit | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic". AllMusic . Archived from the original on December 15, 2013. Retrieved December 30, 2013.
  3. Mejia, Paula (October 3, 2013). "Album review: Mutual Benefits". Consequence of Sound. Archived from the original on December 7, 2013. Retrieved December 13, 2013.
  4. Zevolli, Giuseppe (January 7, 2014). "Mutual Benefit - Love's Crushing Diamond". Drowned in Sound. Archived from the original on February 1, 2014. Retrieved January 26, 2014.
  5. Tam, Whitney (October 7, 2013). "Mutual Benefit - Love's Crushing Diamond". Exclaim!. Retrieved December 13, 2013.
  6. Love's Crushing Diamond is restful, woven, baroque. [Feb 2014, p.89]
  7. Snapes, Laura (January 17, 2014). "Mutual Benefit - 'Love's Crushing Diamond". NME . Retrieved June 3, 2025.
  8. Cosores, Philip (December 3, 2013). "Mutual Benefit: Love's Crushing Diamond". Paste . Retrieved June 3, 2025.
  9. 1 2 Cohen, Ian (October 25, 2013). "Mutual Benefit: Love's Crushing Diamond". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on February 14, 2014. Retrieved February 11, 2014.
  10. "Love's Crushing Diamond". Rolling Stone . December 11, 2013. Archived from the original on March 13, 2016. Retrieved September 4, 2017.
  11. The result is a meditative, wide-open form of celestial American folk music. [Feb 2014, p.78]