“Johnson displays his maturity as a songwriter. These are songs written in the language of raw need.”
– ROLLING STONE
“Lean, smart, intelligent, sharp, focused and coolly assured. A minor masterpiece of major proportions.”
– TIME OUT
“A tingling, volatile uninhibited near masterpiece. Your record collection needs this record.”
– NME
“THE THE hit a new creative peak with their most stripped down and most assured album to date.”
– BILLBOARD
“Johnson’s extraordinary voice, scrapes the gravel of the soul one minute while rising confidently and boldly the next to fully realise the melodic possibilities of each piece. His best album in years.”
– THE GUARDIAN
“Matt Johnson is something of a musical miracle worker. A very enjoyable record indeed.
– Q ****
“Johnson’s best instrument is his voice. He croaks, whispers and croons tales of misery with hysteria never far from the surface. This is his best twist on the formula yet.”
– WIRE
“More stylish than anything since THE THE’s 1983 masterpiece Soul Mining.”
– THE SUNDAY TIMES
“Dusk has ‘Classic’ written in large letters all over it.”
– COSMOPOLITAN
“Songs like ‘Slow Emotion Replay’, ‘Dogs of Lust’, and particularly ‘Helpline Operator’ are among the finest the wordsmiths of his generation have hurled our way. If anything, his creative powers are very much in the ascendant.”
– MELODY MAKER
“A masterful panorama of millennial angst. Wonderful.”
– SELECT
“Matt Johnson’s tales of emotional violence and social disintegration still cut to the bone.”
– I.D.
“Matt Johnson’s new songs suggest a struggle between lust and love, between base existence and the divine, making Dusk his most spiritual album yet.”
– HOT PRESS
“A sparse and sleazy yet forceful blues/funk cloak wraps itself around Johnson’s music. A superb album.”
– THE BIG ISSUE *****
“Matt Johnson has done it again. Chalk up another hit for the boy.”
– SMASH HITS
“Exquisitely penetrative, seedy and seductive. At this point I think I’m meant to call it the year’s first classic album. So I will.”
– THE LIST
“Dusk. Album of the year, period. It’s really very obvious.”
– HITS
“Dusk‘s strength and force comes from Johnson’s apparent sincerity. If he is play-acting, it fools me.”
– THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
“Chronicling the search for fulfilment through love Johnson’s songs pit desperate thoughts against stark acoustic arrangements, giving the record a searing penitential quality.”
– INTERVIEW
“Far from losing himself in lament, he exults in our corruption, housing his mad cackles in desirable melodic surroundings.”
– SPIN
“Once again, Johnson’s songs highlight his fascination with lust, failure, obsession and faulty communication in the urban world’s twilight zone. Infectious throughout.”
– VOX
“Might just be the most musical thing Matt Johnson has ever recorded. His honesty shines through. I loved it to pieces.”
– HI-FI NEWS
“No matter how long it takes him to make records. If they’re as good as this, we can wait. Stirring stuff.”
– HIT CD *****
“Matt Johnson remains one of rock music’s most wilfully erratic figures. If you like your rock music obsessive and unsettling, then this is for you. We’ve heard it all before but never like this.”
– ROCK CD
“Hard rocking and horny as hell”
– CITY LIMITS
“You can almost feel the desire emanating from your speakers.”
– GAVIN REPORT
“This album opens out to be every bit as powerful as it’s forerunners.”
-HI-FI WORLD
“Dusk is an oft subtle, sublime, seductive album – a velvet gloved charmer.”
– THE BOSTON GLOBE
“THE THE’s strongest and most consistent record to date, Dusk is further proof of the theorem that pain can make great art.”
– DETROIT FREE PRESS
“Overall Dusk is just what the name implies, the soothing chill of approaching evening upon the body after a long hot day.”
– BUZZ
“Lurching through the speakers like a demented, hellfire spitting preacher, Johnson’s voice has taken on a new depth. Dusk is THE THE’s most personal and explosive record.”
– ALTERNATIVE PRESS
“Regardless of its streamlined strength, Dusk reveals a side of Matt Johnson that has never been so deeply mined. Fortunately, the depths of this vein are bottomless.”
– MUSIC MONTHLY
“This is THE THE’s strongest and most consistent record to date.”
– SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS
“With the amount of change that this band has undergone over the past decade, certain things have held true. Matt Johnson’s ability to speak through his song writing and his ability to change, without conforming is the main thing.
– THE WRAP UP
