Some of us on staff here were bigger-than-expected fans of Alexis Taylor's first solo album Rubbed Out when it was released back in October 2008, and Await Barbarians makes for another good-humoured, heart-on-sleeve sleeper set of songs teetering between thoughtful, singer/songwriter-ly tunefulness and gleeful electronic abandon.
"Taylor lays bare the heart and art always faintly detectable beneath the happy grooves. His high, thin vocals, careful diction and formal lyrical style are well suited to the more traditional role of sensitive singer-songwriter. Framed by wonky and at times extremely minimalist electronica, with ambient noises and odd glitches, his songs strike a balance between a kind of country folksiness and offbeat futurism. Lyrically, preoccupations include mortality, relationship problems and general anxieties about life but leavened by dry humour that is more playful than melancholy." - The Telegraph