Kill for Love is the fourth studio album by American electronic music band Chromatics. It was released on March 26, 2012, by Italians Do It Better. On May 7, 2012, a drumless version of the album, containing 11 songs with no percussion, was made available by the band for free download.
Critical reception
Kill for Love received critical acclaim from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 80, based on 18 reviews. AllMusic critic K. Ross Hoffman wrote that the album "maintains an impressively high level of quality and emotional resonance throughout", adding that "just about everything" on the album is "inarguably effective, and starkly beautiful in its simplicity". Drowned in Sounds Sean Adams praised its "scale and ambition" and dubbed it "a modern masterpiece", while BBC Music's Alex Denney named it "one of the finest records to surface this year". Jesse Cataldo of Slant Magazine viewed Kill for Love as "a great tribute to the grueling power of fatigue, an album that turns a dearth of ideas into a virtue."
Marc Hogan of Pitchfork commented that the album "boasts some of the most engrossing synth-pop songs so far this year", adding that "[i]t's not just a collection of hits; it's an album, one that gives the project's familiar nocturnal foreboding a new sense of grandeur." Austin Trunick of Under the Radar noted its "meticulously well thought-out" sequencing and remarked that it "feels less like an album and more like a feature film." Nows Benjamin Boles called the album "strikingly epic" and concluded that "as a more condensed pop album it could also be a strong statement, but the languid pacing and excess of empty space make the perfect frame for the singalongs." In a mixed review, Eric Harvey of The A.V. Club dubbed Kill for Love an "ambitious work", but felt that "the tracks blend together into a flat, echo-drenched concoction of Radelet's blank Nico croon", concluding that "it's probably worth just waiting for the movie [Drive]."
Accolades Publication Accolade Rank The 405 Albums of the Year22 AllMusic Best of 2012 28 Decade in Review BBC Music Top 25 Albums of 2012 18 Beats Per Minute The Top 50 Albums of 2012 2 Clash The Top 40 Albums of 2012 29 The Top 100 Albums of Clashs Lifetime 81 Cokemachineglow Top 50 Albums 201217 Consequence of Sound Top 50 Albums of 2012 21 Top 100 Albums of the 2010s 60 Crack Magazine The Top 100 Albums of 2012 27 DIY Albums of 2012 14 Drowned in Sound Favourite Albums of 2012 3 Exclaim! Best Albums of 2012 21 Filter Top 10 of 2012 16 Gorilla vs. Bear Albums of 2012 1 Albums of the Decade (2010–2019) 8 The Guardian Best Albums of 2012 13 The 100 Best Albums of the 21st Century 85 The Line of Best Fit The Best Fit Fifty: Albums of 2012 47 musicOMH Top 100 Albums of 2012 4 No Ripcord Top 50 Albums Of 2012 28 Obscure Sound Best Albums of 2012 17 Pitchfork The Top 50 Albums of 2012 8 The 100 Best Albums of the Decade So Far (2010–2014) 44 The 30 Best Dream Pop Albums 13 The 200 Best Albums of the 2010s 101 PopMatters The 75 Best Albums of 2012 10 The Best Indie Rock of 2012 1 Pretty Much Amazing Best Albums of 2012 7 The Quietus Albums of the Year 2012 41 Slant Magazine The 25 Best Albums of 2012 6 The 100 Best Albums of the 2010s 16 Stereogum Top 50 Albums of 2012 14 Treble Top 50 Albums of 2012 2 Under the Radar Top 100 Albums of 2012 12 Uproxx All The Best Albums of the 2010s 40 The Village Voice Pazz & Jop 28
Track listing
Charts Chart (2012) Peakposition Belgian Alternative Albums (Ultratop Flanders) 32
References