The Walkabouts

“That the majority of the world has not noticed is their loss.”
Rolling Stone, Germany (4 **** for Devil's Road & Nighttown reissues)

"Devil's Road/Nighttown... plush melancholia styled along Cohen/Bad Seeds/Walker Brothers... the American Triffids."
Uncut, UK (8/10)

"[Devil's Road & Nighttown] are the culmination of an artistic vision walked resolutely."
Roots Highway, Italy

"The Walkabouts were really projecting a music of the future: a crafty blend of pop, rock, and soul that is now at the heart of a new popular movement in music."
KEXP Blog, US

Top 10 Americana Albums of 2011 [Travels in the Dustland]
Sylvie Simmons, MOJO

“Devil's Road & Nighttown - two formidable folk rock masterpieces."
Die Stern, Germany

"Seattle alt-folk stalwarts' dalliance with major label production values delivered this (Devil's Road) lush upgrade of their badlands balladry."
Mojo, UK (4 ****)

"Devil’s Road is arguably the quintessential Walkabouts statement; being a go-to record that distills the band’s core vision into a suite of indomitable songs that hold regular fixtures in the band’s live set-lists to this day. Encapsulating themes of love, loss, escapism and redemption throughout, Devil’s Road is a ruralized road-trip mapped out across a landscape of ravishing widescreen orchestral epics."
DOA, UK

"One reason to be cheerful is that the Walkabouts are still going after more than a quarter of a century. Another is that they can put out an album as good as [Travels In The Dustland] when they've worked so long together. For more than a decade, their music has taken on a more cinematic sweep, and that seems to find its apex in this journey through a mythical American Southwest. It's an epic ambition, and one that they pull of magnificently."
iTunes

"The Walkabouts are layered between folk, rock, country and desert blues music...after all these years, they still sound as warm and vital. Very reassuring." 
Cobra, Belgium

“Dark, haunting, and elegiac: The Walkabouts sprung forth from the storytelling traditions of American roots music and the kinetic excitement of rock & roll.” 
Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide, US

"'Berlin isn't the sound of a band growing old gracefully or coasting along on their back catalogue. No, it's an angry record drawn in good part from their last studio record 'Travels in the Dustland' and drawing on other songs from their well that fit the mood of controlled anger. That's impressive for a band that's been around since 1988, you can feel the indignation from the opening of 'Rainmaker Blues' it's as muscular and as seething as they've ever sounded"
Americana UK - (8/10)

"Berlin is a wonderful instant classic, a cornerstone of modern American music."
Onda Rock, Italy - (9/10)

"From the first sound of [Berlin] opener "Rainmaker Blues" to the final cymbal crash of the twelve-minute masterpiece "Grand Theft Auto," the long wait was worth it."
Laut, Germany - (4/5)

"Travels in the Dustland conjures up a haunting, almost mythical American landscape of lost highways and endless skies... worthy of far wider attention."
Q, UK

"The Walkabouts don't make records often these days but when they do, they're usually worth hearing. In the past they've blended various European influences along with their core Americana style, but on [Travels in the Dustland] they come across like the Seattle equivalent of Calexico, with a song-cycle about the desert, viewed as lure and desolation, dreamscape and death.

There's a distinct No Country for Old Men vibe about songs like "They Are Not Like Us" and "No Rhyme, No Reason", in which songwriter Chris Eckman describes the emptiness "wrapped tight around you like the branches of a mesquite tree". The backdrops feature dark sheets of strings and organ, the occasional lonely trumpet, and lumpy, superstitious drums driving the menacing Western mythos to its doom: not a forgiving place, but an engrossing one."
The Independent, UK