Gangs (album)
Gangs is the second studio album by the Northern Irish post-rock band And So I Watch You From Afar, released on 29 April 2011 on Richter Collective. Reception Gangs was released to positive critical acclaim. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 68, based on 9 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews." Allmusic reviewer Dave Donnelly referred to the album's sound as "weightier and more abrasive than its predecessor" but criticised that it was "tailored for the stage" which "sacrificed some of the beautiful flow and elegant dynamic." He awarded the album three and a half out of five stars. Writing for the Austin Chronicle, Adam Schragin said that Gangs "spins an enormously wrought piece of work that finally matches the band's inflated aspirations with production values" but called the songs "oddly unmemorable" in his two out of five star review. BBC Music writer Brad Barrett praised the album, summarising it as "an album strewn with the debris of a war march, albeit one laced with smirks and triumphant songs" and noted how it "starts to feel textural as opposed to bludgeoning." Simon Jay Catling of