Robert Christgau Reviews Rooney Mara's Second Album

“If her first album was consumed by atmospheric portent that too often wound up portending nothing much, her second album, while still noodly in patches, forgoes the weirdly constricted gelationous improvisation for something more uniform without acquiescing to any kind of malnourished rigidity, preferring a tonally whole distortive idle that relieves if it doesn’t quite cure. And though her lyrics, if you are willing to put in the time to extract them from behind the oft-impenetrable scrap-metal-y reverb, too often dissolve as pixie dust, the substantially enigmatic soundscapes are so intriguing in their siren’s call that What It Means does not mean as much as what it is. It is sent from somewhere south of heaven, which is coarser than I would’ve thought, and good thing too.” ☆☆☆