Patrick Wolf
The Bachelor
Release Date: Aug 11, 2009
Genre(s): Rock, Alternative
Record label: Nylon
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Album Review: The Bachelor by Patrick Wolf
Very Good, Based on 10 Critics
Based on rating 8/10
'Hate was just a failure of the imagination' - Graham Greene, The Power And The Glory You know the rap. Patrick Wolf. Twenty-five. Blonde, currently. Generates unprecedented hyperbole – both positive and negative – in even the most measured of commentators. A photographer's field day. Morphed ….
Based on rating 4/5
Richly textured electro-pop teems with flamboyance and sees Wolf come over like a cosmic Martin Fry..
Based on rating 8/10
Patrick Wolf is definitely getting better with age. While some viewed The Magic Position as a step back after his precocious and stunningly experimental first two albums, it was undoubtedly his most approachable and commercially successful work. The Bachelor is pseudo-self-released (financed by fans as well through bandstocks.com) after a split over creative differences with Universal.
Based on rating 7.1/10
Disco-punk, Tilda Swinton and lack of cohesion highlight first half of double concept album Patrick Wolf’s The Bachelor is the first half of a double concept album originally titled Battles. The reason for the split was Wolf’s desire to “not overload people with too much,” a concern borne out by the album’s already-overstuffed composition. The Bachelorcoherent narrative material.
Based on rating 3.5/5
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Based on rating 7/10
Immaculately coiffed London-based glam-dance antihero Patrick Wolf's fourth album picks right up where 2007's Magic Position left off, albeit with a darker palette of colors to paint from. Wolf's penchant for brooding British folk melodies pasted into a nightmarish cradle of apocalyptic techno-chicanery has never been more manipulative than on The Bachelor. Where Magic Position was light beating back darkness, The Bachelor is revolution succumbing to chaos.
Based on rating 6.5/10
Within Hot Chip’s song “Shake a Fist,” there’s an interlude in which a game is suggested: “This game is called Sounds of the Studio, and it can be played with any record, including this one. You may be surprised. Now if you have a pair of headphones, you better get ‘em out and cranked up, ‘cause they’re really gonna’ help ya’.” This is exactly how Patrick Wolf’s music should be listened to -- headphones on and up while in a deep focus as you may normally dedicate to a Sunday crossword puzzle.
Based on rating 6.2/10
Regardless of his mythmaking and tireless efforts to project an otherworldly persona, Patrick Wolf still tends to write what he knows. One of the first of many bold proclamations on The Bachelor goes "in these hard times, we'll work harder," and whether you see him as an impish genius or a guy who'd be better off without an internet connection, you can't fault his commitment to craft-- all three of his previous records were meticulously imagined; all three sounded like the work of one man but rarely sounded like each other. The Bachelor ups the ambition ante even higher, but it's just as as notable for displaying Wolf at his most interdependent, fitting in guest shots from Alec Empire and Tilda Swinton.
Based on rating 3/5
Pity poor Patrick Wolf, a man permanently at the end of his tether. A couple of years ago he announced his retirement from music on his fan discussion boards, an event that duly did not come to pass. In the promotional rounds for this, his fourth album, he told the website Drowned in Sound that he was leaving Britain because: "I think I'm misunderstood by a lot of journalists, by a lot of the English public." Well, being misunderstood is likely to be the fate of androgynous blond men - "flamboyant" scarcely does him justice - with a penchant for Celtic folk.
Based on rating 5/10
Over the course of three albums, Patrick Wolf has earned himself a reputation as a first-rate shape shifter. Starting out as a brooding, electro-folk provocateur, he soon came to embrace the lush sounds of chamber-pop, making a name for himself as a bedroom composer with a wide dramatic streak. On 2007’s The Magic Position, he finally shed the last recognizable vestiges of his morose persona, producing an album of dizzyingly cheerful electro-pop that was as refreshing as it was novel.
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