Mind over Matter (Young the Giant album)

Promotion

The lead single from the album, "It's About Time", was released on October 28, 2013, together with an accompanying music video. On December 10, 2013, it was followed by the release of the second single, "Crystallized", for which a music video was released a day earlier.

As of 14 January 2014, the album could be streamed for free on iTunes until its official release on January 21, 2014.

Critical reception

Mind over Matter received generally favorable reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 67, based on 7 reviews, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

Rating the album three stars out of five, Timothy Monger of AllMusic called the album "an able, straightforward modern indie rock record," and wrote that the band was at its best on some of the lighter songs on the album, such as "Firelight" and "Waves". However, he noted that "the type of mainstream guitar/synth rock Young the Giant pursue is littered with similar acts, making it tough to rise above the din. Comparisons to stadium-filling bands like Coldplay and Phoenix are not out of line, but there is a general lack of distinction to much of the music on Mind Over Matter, suggesting that the band still hasn't discovered its defining characteristics."

Consequence of Sound's Kristofer Lenzon wrote that Mind over Matter "documents the metamorphosis of the band from indie darling who could to full-blown arena rock overlords." However, he noted that "all the gloss and shimmer doesn't add to the overall enjoyment of the album, but presents a wavering distraction from the content," and that at times Justin Meldal Johnson's heavy production seems to be trying to compete with the strength of lead singer Sameer Gadhia's vocals: "Virtuosic talents like Gadhia's often sound best when given room to breathe and expand, as on Young the Giant's 'God Made Man' or Mind Over Matter's 'Firelight', where a simple plucked guitar line and atmospheric tones serve as a platform, not competition for Gadhia. The result is the sweetest and most emotionally impactful song on the record. (...) On an album so choked with production, the simplest moment is its most affecting."

Track listing

All tracks written by Young the Giant, except "Eros" written by Young the Giant and Justin Meldal-Johnsen.