Allmusic has a glowing 4½-star review of Beautiful Debris, as written by Ned Raggett:  “It’s a fun and accurate album title, Beautiful Debris, collecting the quite wonderful and indeed more often than not sweetly beautiful output of Blair 1523. . . .  Compiling both the EP and unreleased tracks, it makes a solid case for Blair 1523 as underrated modern psych gods, mixing a fun kick-up-your-heels rave-up sense – ‘Swell’ is particularly great on this level – with some drone feedback zone-outs to good effect.” 

(September 2013)

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Writing for Allmusic, Ned Raggett says of the Les Hell on Heels CD:  “If one word can cover everything here, it’s ‘swagger’ – songs like ‘He’s Alright’ and ‘Waste of Time’ could almost coin the term in both the singing and the brawling, rolling punch of the band (big credit to both Chela LaRue and drummer Kristin Machynski).”  That’s not the only word Raggett introduces though; he calls the band’s music “snot-garage”. 

(December 2013)

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Ned Raggett in Allmusic has unending praise for this song:  “The album boldly starts out with an undisputed [Nick] Cave masterpiece – ‘The Mercy Seat’, a chilling self-portrait of a prisoner about to be executed that compares the electric chair with the throne of God.  Queasy strings from a Gini Ball-led trio and Mick Harvey’s spectral piano snake through a rising roar of electric sound – a common musical approach from many earlier [Bad] Seeds songs, but never so gut-wrenching as here.  Cave’s own performance is the perfect icing on the cake, commanding and powerful, excellently capturing the blend of crazed fear and righteousness in the lyrics.” 

(November 2014)