Stricken City - Songs About People I Know

Tracklisting: 1. Gifted 2. Pull The House Down 3. Tak o Tak 4. Small Things 5. Killing Time 6. P.S. 7. Sometimes I Love You 8. Five Metres Apart 9. The Traveller 10. Terrible Things

BBC - What makes Stricken City stand out from the bunch of new UK indie bands currently attempting something along similar lines, though, is a palpable sense of belief and passion about their music married with a willingness to experiment beyond the sometimes narrow confines of the genre.

Pitchfork - 7.5, a fine record; despite its length, it's fleshed out and full of flourish. If anything, it's all over way too soon.

NY Times - Most of the songs on Stricken City’s debut album, “Songs About People I Know” (The Kora), chime like late-1980s new wave. Rebekah Raa overdubs her wholesome voice into pop harmony choruses while her keyboards, and Iain Pettifer’s guitar connect for galloping, celebratory riffs. But the splintered words she sings are more contentious, full of tensions between parent and child, between friends, between lovers: “Broken people breaking ties give cause to doubt what’s seen as right,” she sings over a jaunty march beat in “Tak o Tak” (whatever that means). Now and then the misgivings surface in the music too — particularly in “Terrible Things,” a cryptic warning set to piano and very few other instruments — to show there’s depth behind that chipper exterior.

Pitchfork - 7 out of 10, track review of "small things"... the enthusiasm and charm that Stricken City exudes is all theirs, and it's undeniable.

SPIN - 8 out of 10, Stricken City's debut swings moodily from tough, angular clang to tender, introspective melodies -- the organ and stuttering woodblock beat of "Pull the House Down" are more likely to inspire fierce '80s club posing than an actual trip to the club. Singing breathlessly of boys and boredom, Raa plays the charismatically pouty bedroom diva, asking, "Whatever happened to old-fashioned romance and dancin' and singin'?"

h Magazine - One of those magical albums that’s a seeming masterpiece from start to finish with nary a mediocre ditty in its grooves.

The Fader - Tour Video Premiere; “Pull the House Down” is the slow-burner off Stricken City’s excellent debut album, Songs About People I Know, sultry and bass-tethered and reminding us a bit of a subdued Sugarcubes...

The Agit Reader - Originality, especially in a sea of similarly sharp-tongued blokes, is a difficult goal to reach for these days, but Stricken City show it in style and substance.

Beyond Race - It is the precise musicianship with which they do it that’s exciting. In a mere half hour, Songs About People I Know, manages to satisfy the listener’s quench for pop. Which is a hell of a lot better than an hour long release full of blunders. That headdress, it will grow on you.

The Fader - We’re so enamored of the shambolic harmonies on Stricken City’s debut, Songs About People I Know... we are going to invite them to every slumber party we throw henceforth.

Giant Robot - Rebekah Raa has a happy voice, and her sugary keyboards are fun element but sophisticated at the same time. From beginning to end, all 10 songs are solid.

No Ripcord - 9 out of 10,one of the most exciting guitar pop albums in a while.

New York Times - front page of CMJ Day 2

NME- 8 out of 10. If this was the early 80s Stricken city would be label mates of Orange juice, as this mini-album features 8 of the the prettiest, shambling C86 style pop nuggets since the Postcard era.

Intentionally angular and amateurish, Pull The House Down, Five Metres Apart and Killing Time offer skittish, playful guitar lines, fidgety bass and one finger keyboards, all deliciously cut with Rebekah Raa's striking, spectral chirrup, which is more than a little reminiscent of Sugacubes era Bjork.

With gawky, naive charm in abundance, this will be an album to make many a student sigh dreamily as they lovingly scrawl I HEART STRICKEN CITY onto their pencil cases in Tippex.

The Fly - 4 stars, Stricken City's sound recalls all sorts of lovely things put out by Rough Trade and Postcard in the mid-80s. 'Songs About People I Know' oozes with fun and spontaneity, like 'Gifted', an acapella ditty recorded on a London bus, or the wonderfully bouncy, Orange Juice-esque 'Five Metres Apart'. Scratchy guitars are complemented by Rebekah Raa's syrupy vocals, fragile and slow burning like Alison from Young Marble Giants on 'Sometimes I Love You', yet hiccupy and Bjorky on 'PS'. A bit more of this and we could easily fall in love with Stricken City. Kind of wonderful.

The Fader - From the beginning, London’s Stricken City has been a practice in restraint, singer Rebecca Raa’s outfits about as loud as they get. Just when you expect a song to expand and get ruined, they go into the coat closet and wait for you to stop looking around. Weirdos. Their songs are all so gentle and pleasant you almost want to think they’re pointless, but that’s because you’re probably American and subtlety is not our way. Either that, or they are wrong and should drop a huge acid synth bridge in here somewhere, but we don’t think so. This song, from their album to be released on Kora Records November 3rd, is their best yet, with a few more hooks and a more sultry Raa.

One Track Mind - The listener gets treated to the strident notes of post-punk inspired bass, a leisurely breakdown that recalls the best of the female-fronted Brit-pop acts, and an impeccably produced coda.

CLASH - Stricken City, emerging from the rubble of riot grrl and Britpop, triumpantly bring something fresh and exciting to moder music with their enthusiasm, snappy poetic lyrics and, unlike other art bands, a warm welcoming heart...