You’re forced to occupy their barren pop architecture…. You don’t understand it, but, though you might not admit it, you do hope it will understand you. Or at least not destroy you…. You feel like there’s a real live pop song in there somewhere, but it seems that most of the essential moments have been recorded over with silence or incidental noise. There’s obviously still a skeleton to hang a song on, but you start to wonder whether you’re the one who was supposed to bring it…. These songs are for real, but they’re not about disappointment, or complacency, or shame, or attention, or glee. They’re about themselves. Without ironic distance, such oblique experiments can seem exhausting. But only on the giving end: it takes a humble and prolific writer, some cunning musicians, a very patient engineer, and an overarching commitment to self-censorship to pull an album like this off.
• PITCHFORK
The Caribbean’s Discontinued Perfume is a subtle masterpiece.
• WASHINGTON POST
The brilliance of The Caribbean is subtle. It never jumps out at you, but it’s always there, hidden behind Kentoff’s off-kilter vocals. The more you pay attention (headphones help), the more you start to hear the creative production flourishes and masterful instrumentation. There’s no denying that this is progressive pop music made for the thinking fan and therefore may be difficult for the masses to grasp, but you often have to work for the good stuff.
• HARP
Let us be clear about this: Plastic Explosives is one of the finest recent records we’ve found, from any act, local or otherwise. (It) is beautiful, plain and simple, and a treat to listen to passively. It keeps gently reminding you, though, just how subtly rich its songs are, how much it has to offer. It’s a masterpiece, tucked away in and revealing the crowded streets and quiet record stores of the District.
• DCIST
The band’s songs are weird, self-contained universes, jewel-box vignettes about artists and spies and lovers.
• WASHINGTON CITY PAPER
The Caribbean. Shadowy quintet (perhaps trio?) draped in velvet enigma. Or maybe just Steely Dan on a light-beer budget, faceless contributors scattered hither and yon, submitting stealthy sonic fragments via telephone transmissions and paper-airplane parachute drops. Descended from primo D.C. agitpop, old-school division. Certainly of the Dischord tribe (see: the flip attitude of the Make-Up or Jawbox’s raw edge).
• MAGNET