Ben Folds Five The Unauthorized Biography of Reinhold Messner

3.5 stars (out of 5) - "...a four-piece string section adorns many of these tracks, lending them a lush, cinematic feel....filled with...richly melodic ballads that take the form of romantic declarations that wind up expressing far more ambivalent emotions..."
3.5 stars (out of 5) - "...ambitious, irritating, confounding, catchy and strangely compelling....'Radiohead for geeks'....Folds goes for the gusto here..."
8 (out of 10) - "...Folds and Co. embrace old-fashioned sunny-but-sad pop art echoing prime Dionne Warwick, 10cc, and Fold's beloved Captain Fantastic. It can be impressive..."
"...Folds writes chirpy pop melodies much sparer than those of old-school art-rock bands, and the Five are less taken with electronic gizmos..." - Rating: B
(4 out of 5) - Excellent - "...vaguely conceptual,less frantic than previous work, more lush in both scope and arrangement. Influences seem more diverse and somehow older....Exciting stuff. And they're memorable, individual and kinda odball fun."
"...faithful and pateient adherents to Folds' slacker gospel will...accept [REINHOLD MESSNER] as required reading."
4 stars (out of 5) - "...loads of great piano flourishes....this soundtracks the swagger of conquering a whole heap of very, very beautiful humpback bridges..."
Ranked #9 in Mojo Magazine's "Best of 1999."
"...exhilarating, amusingly inappropriate and just plain silly by turns....fresh textures have been employed to considerable effect and there's an attention to dynamic detail and palpable compositional ambition that marks the album as a significant development..."
7 out of 10 - "...It has the ambitious scope and fragile bravado of a record hewn out of tremendous passion....reeling from plinkety cabaret to '70s AOR to breathless Beach Boys melodics with panoramic ease..."