Sling (studio album) by Clairo

From Brad1770 01/17/2022 09:13

The worlds busiest guy behind the desk Jack “Bleachers” Atonoff saves another damsel in distress in 2021 following LDR and St.Vincent and has his fingerprints all over this lovely album which is like Phoebe Bridges meets Elliot Smith with a sprinkle of Belle and Sebastian

From AlvaroIesus 09/19/2021 19:05

Hermoso album... muy sensible.
highlights:
-Bambi
-Amoeba
-Partridge
- Blouse

From AlvaroIesus 09/08/2021 20:29

Muy buen trabajo de Clairo y Antonoff.

Sling has a great dream like quality but takes it a bit too far, it needs a few moments to bring it back to the surface and ground the listener but instead just continues its deep dive until it eventually falls flat and becomes a chore to listen to. This project just feels so devoid of the life and character of her previous work. Clairo had cemented herself as such a pinnacle of the bedroom pop world but seems to take a step back here in an attempt to draw in more critical listeners, a move that (in my opinion) was for the worse. I was so excited for a Antonoff produced Clairo project but this falls to the wayside like many of his recent productions. This album just needs some kind of substance. Something- anything to make it worth the listen but sadly it doesn’t provide. Still some noteworthy tracks here Amoeba and Partridge sound like they are close to moving in the right direction but don’t quite make the leap. Not awful but not really great either 5.5/10

From Keatownrodriguez 08/05/2021 00:01

This album has a dreamlike quality that I've never seen done in such this specific way, that with the washed-out guitars and stuff it really feels densely packed with emotion. It does towards the end feel a little aimless with tracks that could all act as closers stuck next to each other but the feelings I get when listening to this project are unparalleled

From cestuneblague 07/21/2021 04:22

As pretty, bland and inoffensive as her previous material, though lyrically more appealing as it's nice to see she's aging gracefully from the more Tumblr-ified soap operas of her previous works- even if still feels a little too surface-y in the end. Even with the producer change, though, her overall sound still feels like it was flattened into a straight line, with Clairo often sounding indistinguishable from the rest of the production which makes the whole performance come across as much less natural than Im sure what was intended. Still it's a solid enough entry into the new recent wave of 70s-indebted records, musically nothing new but pleasent enough to moderately enjoy until the very end, I guess. Flat circle.

From Mercury 07/20/2021 20:03

(Clairo gets in a spacious, calming, introspective groove with this album and sticks the landing. A beautiful, laid-back, Singer/Songwriter album with some cool folk/pop rock, Baroque/Chamber pop elements. The tracklist never veers far from that feeling of contemplative melancholy mixed with optimistic dreeamy youth.)

There is an impressive commitment to mood on this album. With few exceptions this Clairo project stays in a very introspective, hushed, and contemplative Chamber/Baroque folk pocket. This consistent sound, with few angles or almost anything metaphorically jutting out, may turn some people off. Not me, however. I quite like the mood and space this album puts me in. Sounds like a young woman making beautiful folk, filled with many vintage sounds and snippets of self-analyzing and discovery and conversational meandering.

The production is pretty ace almost all the way through. A few times I was a bit put off by the overly-lush and overly-used multi-tracked vocal oohs and ahhs, and I can't remember which track now, but at one point the drums sounded very flat and "off" I suppose. But generally the production is crisp and detailed and gorgeous. Jack Antonoff has a Type and a sound. I was actually unaware of who the producer was the first couple times listening, and I had a thought that this is yet another beautifully executed throwback to those beautiful early 70s folk singer/songwriter records. The other albums from 2021 that I was thinking made up this micro-trend were St. Vincent's 2021 album "Daddy's Home" and Lana Del Rey's 2021 album "Chemtrails Over The Country Club". When I saw a comment on RYM trashing Antonoff's production, I went to verify if this was true. Voila! It is! It's not true that the production sucks, lol, but it is true that the guy behind the last 2 LDR albums, the last St. Vincent album, the last folkie Taylor Swift album - or one of them - "Folklore" and the person behind the very different sounding from those 5 albums "Melodrama: by Lorde is the one who produced this one. Weird. Anyway, the combined work of Antonoff and Clairo make this a tidy, tender and balanced album.

This is just a really even, warm hug of a record. The soft, folkie rock upticks are beautiful, the lush chamber/baroque is solid, the lyrics are solid and the whole record is really well done. The maturity of Clairo before our eyes is almost astounding. At just 22 she has made a very beautiful album and I think she has many more excellent records in her in the years to come.