Press

(click on a quote to read the full article)

"[Baby Ray has] a stack of great press thick enough to choke Wilco"

- Corin Ashly, The Big Takeover, Fall 2006

"Maybe, like Mission Of Burma, [Baby Ray] were twenty years ahead of their time"

- Francis DiMenno, The Noise, July 2006

"Spring-loaded with pretzel-shaped chord progressions, Groat's Scrabble wordplay, and a keen pop sensibility that's equal parts snark and sincerity. There remains a special chemistry to Baby Ray."

- Jonathan Perry, The Boston Globe, May 26 2006

"A damn fine listen that takes on a life of its' own."

- Warren, www.screamingbloodymess.com, June 16, 2006

"Holy F*ck! This is easily the best Baby Ray gets. I can't imagine how they'll top what I have heard from this disc."

- Joel Simches, The Noise, December 2005

"The more people know about this band, the better off the whole world of pop music will be."

- Joel Simches, The Noise, February 2004

"The world is surely a better place whenever Boston's purveyors of playfully skewed prog-pop opt to get their rockathon on"

- Jonathan Perry, The Boston Globe, January 2004

"So many of the newer Boston acts cite these guys as their influence"

- Amanda Nichols, The Noise, November 2001

"when I remarked, in a review of their first album, that its catchiest songs included the word 'f__k,' they responded by sending me a 45-minute tape of Baby Ray songs with that word in the lyric"

- Brett Milano, The Boston Phoenix, August 31, 2001

"Boston has produced its share of great bands through the years... If any band has taken it upon itself to pick up the flag, it's Baby Ray"

- , The Onion, March 30, 2000

"Baby Ray still claim to play rock... though their multifaceted melodies and sharp, left-turn time signatures also roll, pop, swoop, and soar gloriously"

- Jonathan Perry, Stuff @ Nite, February 2000

"Really rattles the mind"

- Annette Lacey, DLClive.com (24-7), January 2000

"We have a magic microphone, Lafler says smiling. I don't even know if I should discuss it"

- Jonathan Babu, Northeast Performer, December 1999

"an addictive little puzzling ditty."

- David Lee Beowulf, Ink 19, December 1999

"If Baby Ray does indeed equal XTC + GBV, then the result of the equation is greater than the sum of its parts"

- Nico, Northeast Performer, November 1999

"Sporting a freshly shaved head, a sleeveless t-shirt, and sweat pants, singer/guitarist Erich Groat popped on stage looking more like a soundman than a rock star"

- Alan Levesque, Northeast Performer, November 1999

"I don't think there was a single person in the Boston scene, musician or journalist, that didn't check out this landmark powerpop record"

- Joel Simches, The Noise, September 1999

"A taste of what rock music can sound like with balls and brains"

- Brett Miller, Hiwire Daze, October/November 1998

"Listening to this disc will improve your grades. And your record collection"

- Joan Anderman, The Boston Globe Music Section, November 5, 1999

"Go to Toad on any Tuesday in October and someday brag to your kids about how you once saw the band in a closet-size pub"

- Amy Finch, Boston.com, October 1999

"Monkey Puzzle = good time"

- Ray from Florida, DLClive.com, (24-7), June 8, 1999

"It's been quite some time since Boston has had a musical export this consistent and thoughtful"

- Wayne F. Tackabury, Fresh Cow Pie, Winter/Spring 1999

"This is energy pop with extra CO2 to shoot up your sinuses and make your eyes bulge"

- Jamie Kiffel, Lollipop Magazine, Winter, 1999

"The songs on Monkeypuzzle are so full of ideas and energy, it's hard to believe that this is the band's debut. A shining example of ear candy that also acts as brain food"

- Ian Danzig, Exclaim!, February, 1999

"Not only is Monkeypuzzle a great debut ... it can also be seen as the culmination of doing everything right the wrong way"

- David C. Eldredge, Illinois Entertainer, January 1999

"It was delirious and focused and very tight -- not so much 'pop gone wrong,' as Baby Ray have wryly described their sound, but rather pop gone very, very right"

- Jonathan Perry, The Boston Phoenix, (Live & on Record), January 14, 1999

"Jarring, angular rhythms combine with restless chord progressions and melodies that, at their wackiest--the almost ridiculously infectious 'Sorry,' for instance--seem to go completely unhinged before suddenly veering back to normality"

- Mac Randall, Launch.com (Online Features), January, 1999

"Simply put, Baby Ray knocks me out - and after the first listen, no less"

- A. M. 'Jake' Jacobson, JTM, Inc. (Album Reviews), December, 1998

"Baby Ray may be poised to join that rarified stratum of groups that make their way into the mainstream, against all odds, on the sheer strength of their songs"

- Joan Anderman, The Boston Globe (Music Section), December 11, 1998

"The experience is like a hurtling, white-knuckle ride down a mountain road"

- Lee Simmons, The Harvard Gazette, December 3, 1998

"Prog-pop anyone?"

- Eric Walls, Faze 3 Magazine, November 1998

"Baby Ray's pop is more like the onomatopoetic definition of the word -- as in pop, zing, whee!"

- Steve Ciabattoni, CMJ, (Reviews), November 30, 1998

"What? You say you don't believe it? Well, it's true! So there."

- Brett Miller, Hiwire Daze, October/November 1998

"though it's a cliche to say that every pop group with clever lyrics and fancy time changes sound like the Swindon lads, it's a rare one who really do..."

- Brett Milano, The Boston Phoenix, (Cellars by Starlight), October 29, 1998

"Very cool, intelligent, art school rock"

- Corin Ashley, Noise Magazine, (Warm Vinyl), March, 1998

"Reminds me a lot of the Fall, but with much more pop music energy"

- DLB, INK, (7 Inches), May 19, 1998

"sounds like those long lost tapes of Brian Ferry's occasional night at the kareoke bar..."

- Northeast Performer, (The 7" Roundup), April, 1998,

"Somewhere between the jagged unpredictability of British pop pioneers XTC and the unabashed melodicism of indie-rockers Guided by Voices"

- David Wildman, The Boston Globe, (On The Rise), February 1, 1998

"[The Ballad of Baby Ray is] better than Thick as a Brick and more recent than The Mayor of Simpleton, and with a hook nearly as good as the latter and about one-twentieth the length of the former"

- Butch and Brenda, Noise Magazine (Audiodoodahday), February, 1998

"Why won't every radio station in the *&&**!ing world play this ground-breaking toe-tapper non-stop?"

- Butch and Brenda, Noise Magazine, (Audiodoodahday), November, 1997

"This band will make a deep and lasting mark in the ears of many a club-goer..."

- Bryon Turcotte, Noise Magazine, (Live Review), October, 1997

"The best local debut since Galaxie 500"

- Butch and Brenda, Noise Magazine, (Audiodoodahday), January, 1997