Reviews for the newest official album Jeffrey Lewis & The Voltage: Bad Wiring (released Nov 2019):
“Bad Wiring finds Lewis and bandmates Mem Pahl and Brent Cole hurrying between melodic garage-punk and raw acoustic grooves to great effect. But it’s his terrific wordplay—sharp, funny, poignant and much more—that really dazzles, from the torrent of anxieties that pour through “My Girlfriend Doesn’t Worry” to his droll adventures in vinyl-digging that power the sublime “LPs.” *******- Rob Hughes, Uncut
“Thick with the evergreen anti-folkie’s charm.” **** – Mojo
“Electrifying, again.” **** – Q Magazine
9/10 – Peterborough Telegraph
“A second. That’s all he needs to dazzle.” – Les Inrockuptibles (original French review here)
“Immediately indispensable” – Section 26 (original French review here)
“One of the most extraordinary voices in contemporary music returns… for the euphoric and highly addictive Bad Wiring. Immediate, charming and perhaps the best delivery to date from one of the very most singular voices.” – Deluxe Magazine (Albums of the Year)
“Terrific stuff… one of the most consistently enjoyable records Lewis has made in his 18-year career. Confessional, cathartic and full of his trademark charm and quirks… the jittery “Except For The Fact That It Isn’t” has more energy than a nursery school full of kids out of their minds on Skittles.”********– HotPress
“Rocks harder than ever… The “and about our relationship” refrain of “My Girlfriend Doesn’t Worry” will have you replaying the album instantly” [grade A-] – Robert Christgau, Consumer Guide (top albums of the year 2019)
“While his tunes may appear shambolic, feisty and disjointed, they’re much more like three-minute masterpieces than mere doodles…. Lewis is ably supported by Mem Pahl (bass) and Brent Cole (drummer) as they make the fantastic real. And who could ask for more in a song?” – London In Stereo
“Jeffrey Lewis & Los Bolts’ 2016 album ‘Manhattan’ is in my Top 5 albums of all time, so when Jeffrey released his latest venture ‘Bad Wiring’ I was beyond excited, though no matter how much I bigged it up in my head I wasn’t prepared for how gorgeous the new album would be.” – Headaches, UK
“Bad Wiring is an electrifying addition to the Jeffrey Lewis canon, and possibly his best studio album yet.” **** – The Skinny
“Alt-folk garage-rock wisdom… There’s a strong suggestion that this is the best album his written to date and after listening to just a handful of songs you’d be hard-pushed to disagree – you’ll also be left wondering why in the hell Lewis is not better known than he is, this album is filled with unforgettable songs that set his songwriting apart from anything else you’re likely to hear today.” – Folk Radio UK
“Sometimes the first time you hear a band can linger long in the memory; for us that was undeniably the case with Jeffrey Lewis… Jeffrey Lewis’ music was like a gateway drug; it opened up worlds of indie-pop, DIY-punk, anti-folk… Jeffrey Lewis offered a real alternative. …While any review of a Jeffrey Lewis album is likely to focus on his lyricism, and worry not we’ll get to that, what’s really clear on Bad Wiring is just how far Jeffrey’s music has come. Listening to Bad Wiring the metamorphosis is clear, it’s a sprawling collection of musical creativity, from the riotous garage-rock of “LPs“, to the bluesy interlude of “Knucklehead / Happy Rain” and the krautrock influenced “In Certain Orders.” Working with producer Roger Moutenot, Jeffrey and The Voltage have wrung every drop of creativity from these songs… His music career might be old enough to go to University, yet on Bad Wiring it seems as fresh and exciting as ever. While it’s too early to call it his best album to date, we’re looking forward to spending the next eighteen years working that out.” – For The Rabbits
“Eighteen years in he’s not just still releasing records, he’s releasing quite possibly the best record he’s ever made. Bad Wiring, Jeffrey’s collaboration with current backing band The Voltage, feels like a crowning moment, the point where his metamorphosis from lo-fi acoustic folkie into eclectic DIY-superstar was complete, with none of his lyrical impact lost along the way.” (Top 5 Albums of the Year 2019) – For the Rabbits
“Cult New York City indie rocker Jeffrey Lewis has a genius for conversational lyrics about life (“The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane,” “You Don’t Have to Be a Scientist to Do Experiments on Your Own Heart,” “Seattle,” etc.) and, more importantly, music nerdery, of which “LPs” off the new Bad Wiring album might be the pinnacle. Lewis has released entire full-lengths devoted to the songs of British anarcho punks Crass and the Fugs’ comedian-poet Tuli Kupferberg, so his cred is impeccable. This may be a minority opinion, but Jeffrey Lewis should be at least as popular as fellow awkward-voiced troubadours the Mountain Goats.” – The Seattle Stranger
“Ascerbic wit, droll delivery, self-deprecating humor and devastating observations of beauty and humanity” – The Daily Times, Knoxville
“Weird? Very… but also downright inspiring” **** – Rolling Stone
“I <3 Jeff Lewis… Jeffrey Lewis is an amazing musician, and if you don’t know his songs you probably have a hole in your heart that can only be filled by his words… I did!” – Regina Spektor
“Lewis’ music is so polarizing, his shows are rarely populated by a disinterested or ambivalent crowd” – BrooklynVegan
“Bizarre but brilliant” – Uncut
“Bands as magical and genuinely original as this are as essential as oxygen.” – Culture Delux
“Polarizing” – Pitchfork
“Dazzling” – Mojo
“Jeffrey is the best pure songwriter I know of… I discovered [Jeffrey’s] music via ‘Sad Screaming Old Man’ which is one of my favorite songs ever written. …I have great respect for [Jeffrey’s] formidable skills.” – David Berman (Silver Jews)
“[Jeffrey Lewis is] The best lyricist working in the US today.” – Jarvis Cocker (Pulp)
“Jeffrey is the only artist I’ve sent fan mail to.” – Jens Lekman
“Hands down my favorite contemporary songwriter” – Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie)
“Really great and impressive and inspiring and exciting… There’s not a lot of people that can tell a story and use language like that in music.” – Will Oldham
“A wordy force of nature… stirs you up with politics or knocks you sideways with sadness… ideas burst from Jeffrey Lewis like an overstuffed suitcase – strange ones, funny ones, poignant ones, usually a mixture…. kicking out ramshackle fuzzbomb jams… it’s difficult to imagine how any couple of hours spent in Lewis’s company couldn’t prove inspirational.” **** – The Guardian
“…[F]or me Lewis is as close to unmissable as music gets and he didn’t disappoint, raking brilliantly over the content of several albums (and he’s never released a bad one) and leaving us, among many highlights, with […] perhaps this festival’s greatest moment.” (Ranked #1 in the top-10 favorite sets of Green Man Festival 2014, even beating out Neutral Milk Hotel and Slint!) – Unwashed Territories
“…[H]ow come Jeffrey Lewis isn’t huge? There’s no doubt that he’s one of the best lyricists currently producing music – easily right up there with John Darnielle – but how many more f**king records does this guy have to make […] until he achieves anything that even remotely resembles a break? Why isn’t he selling out arenas or making national television appearances or gaining recognition as one of the greatest songwriters of his generation? It seems like Lewis occupies somewhat of a blind spot…” – The Portland Mercury
“Truly one of the great American songwriters.” – The Red Hook Star Review
“…ramshackle and beautiful noise… our reviewer had no compunction in crowning the lo fi scallywag as Lou Reed’s natural successor as punk poet of the New York streets. Lewis’s obsession with the grimy minutiae of the NYC streets and the syllable-crowded lines of his punk-folk ballads are points of similarity, psychic tendrils sending art rock nuggets back through time from underneath the weathered carapace of art-rock’s very own Grinch into Lewis’s still-beating rock and roll heart.” – Louder Than War
“There are flash-in-the-pans and then there’s Jeffrey Lewis; since he began making records at the dawn of the 21st Century, there have been thousands of bands to reach fame and hit their hard decline. Lewis keeps challenging himself and his audience while maintaining the attitude and integrity of a cool local dude.” – Jersey Beat
“One of our cleverest, hardest-working, most underrated songwriters” – Magnet
“…[T]he always-great Jeffrey Lewis […] [he] can go from poignance to comedy and back in three seconds.” – Time Out New York
“The Big Apple’s best-kept secret…. Genius-gone-ignored… mind-blowing.” – NME
“Jeffrey Lewis is my homeboy. […] At his best, he’s a vulnerable master of the humorously ineffable” – Robert Christgau
“Strumming a few chords on a guitar that may well be held together by the stickers covering its front, and leading a band that piles on a cheerful clutter… [Jeffrey is] a clever, articulate wordslinger, coming up with rhetorical conceits… and putting in a lot of preparation… [including] finely reasoned histories… affirming populism through primitivism.” – Jon Pareles, The New York Times
“Modestly brilliant” – The Village Voice
“Jeffrey Lewis sings as though absurdity were truth, and truth absurdity. And I think I agree with him.” – Paul Banks (Interpol)
“The first ‘real’ song I ever wrote was ripping off the format of [Jeffrey’s] song. Jeffrey Lewis has always been really inspiring to me as a songwriter and storyteller. The album… It’s The Ones Who’ve Cracked That The Light Shines Through is one of the first albums I remember listening to all the way through and loving every song. I listened to it a lot when I was first writing music.” – Greta Klein (Frankie Cosmos)
“For years, this icon of the Antifolk scene has been creating subversive, subcultural, clever and heart-breaking work, from folk or punk songs to comic strips.” – Indie Magazine
“All my favorite songwriters are American – Jad Fair, Jonathan Richman and Jeffrey Lewis.” – Eddie Argos (Art Brut), quoted in Time Out New York
“Effortlessly brilliant lines that would tangle the larynx of mere mortals tumble from his mouth, and all in that croaky underdog patter” – BBC.co.uk
“…[T]hrough force of will and sleight of hand, Jeffrey Lewis had the sizeable De Barra’s crowd wilfully eating out of his hand. […]Lewis is a writer of the highest calibre. You suspect that he’d prefer to sell a hundred comics than a million records (he called an early EP The Only Time I Feel Right Is When I’m Drawing Comic Books after all) but his sharp, poignant, witty vignettes are pearls, absolute jewels. […] these are the lines of a master craftsman.[…] He sounds like a placid Hammell On Trial, a less quirky Jonathan Richman, a heartbroken Lou Barlow, a hopped-up Side One of Bringing It All Back Home Dylan.” – We Are Noise
“It’s truly staggering how Jeffrey Lewis manages to find new and inventive ways to articulate himself again and again, each time seemingly stronger than the last and each acutely original. It’s phenomenal when you think about it. Jeffrey Lewis and the Jrams got the crowd shuffling and head-bobbing early on […] before proceeding with a carefully selected set stuffed with pounding new works. […] Our favourite NYC storyteller… […] Despite playing to a full house, I can’t help but feel that Jeffrey Lewis has consistently dipped below the mainstream radar […]. Jeffrey Lewis is no doubt one of the great songwriters of his generation: he is dedicated, inventive and challenging.” – Slate The Disco
“Ever since I accidentally stumbled in to a show and found Jeffrey Lewis performing, I have found him one of the most inspiring, delightful, & Must Listen artists of any sort.” – Ted Hope (Film Producer of The Ice Storm, Storytelling, American Splendor, The Devil & Daniel Johnston, etc.)
“Quite simply, world beating…. wielding a beat up acoustic guitar using the English language as a weapon to split your mind in two…” – Jeff Feuerzeig (Filmmaker of Author: The JT Leroy Story, The Devil & Daniel Johnston, etc.)
“…[Jeffrey’s] lyricism is some of the best in modern music […] he has a savant-like ability to turn a phrase upside down, inside out and fold it up into some sort of origami crane; and then just as quickly, perhaps by just shifting the emphasis on a single word within a phrase, lay the metaphorical sheet of paper flat on the table without a single crease in it.” (four of five stars) – Cheese On Toast, New Zealand
“Jeffrey Lewis is slowly but surely on a trajectory to immortal cult-status.” – Line of Best Fit
“Jeffrey Lewis is really hard to explain. […] Jeffrey’s primary shining talent is that he is an effortless communicator, empathy incarnate. I don’t know how he does it, I don’t know what he’s doing, how it works. […] In Jeffrey Lewis-land, we all possess the awesome ability to inspire. And that is why this guy is a treasure.” – Detroit Metro Times
“One of NYC’s musical treasures, Jeffrey Lewis writes heartfelt, thoughtful folk pop with an eye and ear toward history. He’s a charmer live.” – BrooklynVegan.com
“As prolific as he is divisive, anti-folk-turned-folksinger, songwriter and illustrator Jeffrey Lewis doesn’t walk a fine line between clever and cloying so much as he completely obliterates it. On his albums, up to and including this year’s A Turn in the Dream-Songs, moments of eloquence and grandeur sit side by side with moments of sheer unintentional hilarity. That said, even the most curmudgeonly listener can admit Lewis’ candor and fearlessness (along with his genre-blind musical eclecticism) is admirable. And when the sounds actually do align, it’s very easy to forgive his shortcomings.” – IndyWeek.com
“With one foot in the indie rock world and another in NYC’s folk heritage, Jeffrey Lewis has carved out his own niche thanks to his thoughtful, often funny songs that present his unique, empathetic worldview. He is always worth seeing live.” – BrooklynVegan.com
“Always, without fail, ridiculously entertaining. A unique and naturally gifted songwriter… Lewis is the indie poet laureate.” – SoundBlab
“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – Jeffrey Lewis never lets you down …bursting with passion and humour and wonderful songs… the guy’s a genius!” – Quim.org
“He is, to our minds, an almost unrivalled lyrical genius… still daft humorous songs, still riotous punk rackets and still the slow quiet ones that initially make little impression, but you know will later burrow into your skull and haunt you with their poignancy. …It’s simply another triumph from a song-writer, who increasingly feels like an old-friend, one who you welcome with open arms and a warm embrace, welcome back Jeffrey, you’ve worked your magic again.” – For The Rabbits
“A true independant icon… We bask in the absolute insane glory of Jeffrey Lewis, a creative quite unlike any other we have seen or probably ever will see. A true one-off, we wander back into the real world trying so hard to readjust.”– Bido Lito newspaper, Liverpool
“Dry, often clever witticism accompanied by subtle yet driven guitar chords… Enthralling… Wondrous… This dude lays down some seriously viable verbiage. Listen carefully lest ye miss a sinlge piece of his poppy, heart-warming word salads. Relatable, often funny, and driven by the dance inducing power pop of Los Bolts, Jeff Lewis’ unique brand of party folk grabs the attention of any listener.”– Boston Compass
“Lewis demonstrates what it means to think outside the box.” – Rochester City Newspaper
“He has that rare ability that truly gifted performers have, that he can make a connection at some point and at some level, with everyone in the audience.” – BrumLive.com
“His clever songwriting, intriguing illustrated short stories, and unique approach to performing had audience members of all ages in awe…. His simplistic style and undeniable charm was a highlight of the festival.” – Mirth Films (review of Winter Hoot NY 2020)
“Expect a top-shelf evening of off-kilter, frantic and affecting songcraft, plus improvisatory storytelling that is leagues beyond most artists’ stage banter. Except for Jonathan Richman, few do leftfield surrealist singer-songwriter wonderment as well as Lewis. (Also it’s utterly wild to think that Lewis has been at this DIY grind for around two decades.)” – Orlando Weekly (2024)