Neptune City (album)
Encyclopedia
Neptune City was generally well-received by most music critics. Katherine Fulton of Allmusic noticed that "Atkins shows on this album that she has both the capability and potential" and praised the "lush arrangements on Neptune City, which [...] showcase the depth, range, and versatility of Atkins' alto voice, not to mention her songwriting prowess". Chris Jones of BBC Music
wrote that Atkins "delivers glorious, over-the-top twang-drenched ballads that both romanticise her native New Jersey and yet still throw in a tough, dark heart of country noir" and described the album as "something akin to country, but also something weirdly post-modern", while praising its production and vocals. Susan Frances of AbsolutePunk wrote that "the whole album is tooled with melodic patterned frescos combining orchestral fields with pop/rock elements" and added that it "does justice to the real Neptune City". Mikael Wood from Entertainment Weekly
described it as "heartbreak nearly at its finest — and most cosmopolitan" while Joanna Hunkin of The New Zealand Herald
compared it to "an intricate oil painting" and called it "a collection of curiosities, revealing a new intrigue with every listen".
Michael Keefe of PopMatters
found the album "big and dreamy", the arrangements "vibrant, lush, and propulsive", and stated that "the instrumentation will swoop in and carry you along for a 40-minute ride through timeless chamber pop", but also noted that "the primal force that drives Neptune City is the huge and charismatic voice of Nicole Atkins". Will Miller from Music Emissions noticed that Neptune City "deals with that love/hate relationship almost everybody has with their hometown" and wrote that "with varied and lush instrumentation of strings and piano, the musical backdrops are full and rich throughout" and generally praised Atkins' vocal abilities. Suzanne Baumgarten of The Cornell Daily Sun
felt that Atkins "has a folk song quality that makes her otherwise pop-like style unique and truly enjoyable" and called the album "optimistic, yet utterly realistic", while Under the Radar
called it "a superb yesteryear sounding album". The album also garnered positive reviews from independent entertainment website IndieLondon, which found it "well worth checking out", and Greek webzine Avopolis, which described it as "an elegy for love".
A fairly mixed review came from Stacey Anderson of Spin
, who noticed that the artist "coolly distills the romanticism of '60s girl groups into dark, baleful country pop" but felt that "the songs swell and crest in identical structure, leaving her gorgeous voice [...] to battle the overproduction". Jenni Cole of MusicOMH
gave an unfavorable review, saying that "this really is an album that's going nowhere".
, except where noted.
BBC Music
BBC Music is a team working in the department of Audio and Music Interactive at the BBC. Responsible for the BBC Music website - the portal site to music content across the BBC website....
wrote that Atkins "delivers glorious, over-the-top twang-drenched ballads that both romanticise her native New Jersey and yet still throw in a tough, dark heart of country noir" and described the album as "something akin to country, but also something weirdly post-modern", while praising its production and vocals. Susan Frances of AbsolutePunk wrote that "the whole album is tooled with melodic patterned frescos combining orchestral fields with pop/rock elements" and added that it "does justice to the real Neptune City". Mikael Wood from Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
described it as "heartbreak nearly at its finest — and most cosmopolitan" while Joanna Hunkin of The New Zealand Herald
The New Zealand Herald
- External links :* * *...
compared it to "an intricate oil painting" and called it "a collection of curiosities, revealing a new intrigue with every listen".
Michael Keefe of PopMatters
PopMatters
PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
found the album "big and dreamy", the arrangements "vibrant, lush, and propulsive", and stated that "the instrumentation will swoop in and carry you along for a 40-minute ride through timeless chamber pop", but also noted that "the primal force that drives Neptune City is the huge and charismatic voice of Nicole Atkins". Will Miller from Music Emissions noticed that Neptune City "deals with that love/hate relationship almost everybody has with their hometown" and wrote that "with varied and lush instrumentation of strings and piano, the musical backdrops are full and rich throughout" and generally praised Atkins' vocal abilities. Suzanne Baumgarten of The Cornell Daily Sun
The Cornell Daily Sun
The Cornell Daily Sun is an independent daily newspaper published in Ithaca, New York by students at Cornell University. It is the oldest independent college daily in the United States....
felt that Atkins "has a folk song quality that makes her otherwise pop-like style unique and truly enjoyable" and called the album "optimistic, yet utterly realistic", while Under the Radar
Under the Radar (magazine)
Under the Radar is an American magazine that bills itself as "The solution to music pollution" and features interviews with accompanying photo-shoots. Each issue includes opinion and commentary of the Indie music scene as well as reviews on books, DVDs and albums.Items are reviewed based on a...
called it "a superb yesteryear sounding album". The album also garnered positive reviews from independent entertainment website IndieLondon, which found it "well worth checking out", and Greek webzine Avopolis, which described it as "an elegy for love".
A fairly mixed review came from Stacey Anderson of Spin
Spin (magazine)
Spin is a music magazine founded in 1985 by publisher Bob Guccione Jr.-History:In its early years, the magazine was noted for its broad music coverage with an emphasis on college-oriented rock music and on the ongoing emergence of hip-hop. The magazine was eclectic and bold, if sometimes haphazard...
, who noticed that the artist "coolly distills the romanticism of '60s girl groups into dark, baleful country pop" but felt that "the songs swell and crest in identical structure, leaving her gorgeous voice [...] to battle the overproduction". Jenni Cole of MusicOMH
MusicOMH
musicOMH is a United Kingdom-based website which publishes independent reviews, featues and interviews from across all musical genres including classical, metal, rock and R&B.-History:...
gave an unfavorable review, saying that "this really is an album that's going nowhere".
Track listing
All songs written and composed by Nicole AtkinsNicole Atkins
Nicole Atkins is an American singer-songwriter. She has been compared to Roy Orbison and singers from the Brill Building era.-Early life:...
, except where noted.
- "Maybe Tonight" – 3:16
- "Together We're Both Alone" – 4:18
- "The Way It Is" – 3:36
- "Cool Enough" – 5:25
- "War Torn" – 3:58
- "Love Surreal" (Atkins, Tore JohanssonTore JohanssonTore Johansson is a Swedish record producer, composer and musician based in Malmö, Sweden.-Biography:In an interview with HitQuarters, Johansson claimed that the main impetus for his becoming a music producer was the lack of good recording studios in the Malmö area at that time in which to record...
, Jens Lindgard, Martin Gjerstad) – 4:06 - "Neptune CityNeptune City (song)"Neptune City" is the title track on singer-songwriter Nicole Atkins’ 2007 album Neptune City.-Themes:The song is sung mainly from the perspective of a ghost or spirit, paying one last visit to his hometown before leaving forever to the next world....
" – 3:53 - "Brooklyn's on Fire!" – 3:51
- "Kill the Headlights" – 3:19
- "Party's Over" – 4:15
Personnel
- Sven Andersson – fluteFluteThe flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
, saxophoneSaxophoneThe saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846... - Seth Avett – liner notes
- David Carlsson – engineer
- Daniel "Shaolun" Chen – electric pianoElectric pianoAn electric piano is an electric musical instrument.Electric pianos produce sounds mechanically and the sounds are turned into electrical signals by pickups. Unlike a synthesizer, the electric piano is not an electronic instrument, but electro-mechanical. The earliest electric pianos were invented...
, mellotronMellotronThe Mellotron is an electro-mechanical, polyphonic tape replay keyboard originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It superseded the Chamberlin Music Master, which was the world's first sample-playback keyboard intended for music...
, vibraphoneVibraphoneThe vibraphone, sometimes called the vibraharp or simply the vibes, is a musical instrument in the struck idiophone subfamily of the percussion family....
, reed organReed organA reed organ, also called a parlor organ, pump organ, cabinet organ, cottage organ, is an organ that generates its sounds using free metal reeds... - Emil de Waal – vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
- Mattias Gustavsson – vocals
- Dave Hollinghurst – guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
- Tore JohanssonTore JohanssonTore Johansson is a Swedish record producer, composer and musician based in Malmö, Sweden.-Biography:In an interview with HitQuarters, Johansson claimed that the main impetus for his becoming a music producer was the lack of good recording studios in the Malmö area at that time in which to record...
– acoustic guitarAcoustic guitarAn acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...
, bassBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, producerRecord producerA record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
, slide guitarSlide guitarSlide guitar or bottleneck guitar is a particular method or technique for playing the guitar. The term slide refers to the motion of the slide against the strings, while bottleneck refers to the original material of choice for such slides: the necks of glass bottles...
, acoustic bass guitarAcoustic bass guitarThe acoustic bass guitar is a bass instrument with a hollow wooden body similar to, though usually somewhat larger than a steel-string acoustic guitar...
, mixingAudio mixing (recorded music)In audio recording, audio mixing is the process by which multiple recorded sounds are combined into one or more channels, most commonly two-channel stereo. In the process, the source signals' level, frequency content, dynamics, and panoramic position are manipulated and effects such as reverb may... - Maria Køhnke – vocals
- Jens Lindgard – bass, guitar, tromboneTromboneThe trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
- Peter Lindgard – percussionPercussion instrumentA percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
, trumpetTrumpetThe trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
, drumsDrum kitA drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person .... - Vlado Meller – masteringAudio masteringMastering, a form of audio post-production, is the process of preparing and transferring recorded audio from a source containing the final mix to a data storage device ; the source from which all copies will be produced...
- Daniel Mintzer – drums
- Filip Runesson – violinViolinThe violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
, celloCelloThe cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...
, violaViolaThe viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average... - Andrew Scheps – mixing
- Chris Spooner – art direction
- Andreas Stellan – vocals
- Ulf Turesson – vocals
- Jennifer Tzar – photographyPhotographyPhotography is the art, science and practice of creating durable images by recording light or other electromagnetic radiation, either electronically by means of an image sensor or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film...