The New Yorker
“On the recent Chopper, this fertile band’s third LP since it débuted, in 2019, the singer summons Julie Andrews, Outkast, ‘Parasite,’ and the Superman architect Joe Shuster to evoke trepidation, nostalgia, envy, and elusive sentiments that slip between the cracks. Where the lyrics weave puzzles, Kiwi Jr.’s music cuts a straighter line, with tightly designed pop songs that seem to detonate in tiny private explosions.”
Allmusic
“As it stands, Chopper's ear-candy synths and vivid production simply add new layers of intrigue to Kiwi Jr.'s unshakable foundation of consistently strong (and pervasively catchy) indie rock songwriting.”
Pitchfork - 7 Albums Out This Week You Should Listen to Now
“While stopping short of a full-blown synth-pop makeover, Chopper slathers on enough neon-tinted textures to reorient Kiwi Jr. away from the jangle-rock canon and toward the futurist power-pop of the Cars, New Pornographers, and the Strokes circa Room on Fire.”
Brooklyn Vegan - Album Of The Week
"Working with Wolf Parade's Dan Boeckner, Toronto's Kiwi Jr bring a darker edge to their poppy, indie rock style on their terrific third album."
Louder Than War
“It’s an effective shift in their sound and direction and definitely one that further cements their growing standing among both their peers and their influences.”
DIY/UK
"The band wear their influences well, flitting between the melancholic indie-pop of The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart and the gleeful abandon of Jonathan Richman."
Exclaim
“It's a fresh spin on a familiar sound that, for a band now three records into their career, signifies an impressive ability to combine quality and quantity. With this speedy run of LPs, Kiwi Jr. have risen above the pack to become one of the best indie rock bands around.”
Paste
"Kiwi Jr. are doing this kind of music better than just about anybody right now, and with Chopper, Gaudet and the rest of the band justify their standing amongst their influences."
Mojo - Album Of The Week
“Gaudet’s hyper-absurdist approach to songwriting, where Judy Garland and Aperol or Kobe Bryant and Nudie suits nest into neighboring verses, is both sharper and more abstruse than ever.”
Bandcamp - Album Of The Day
"Kiwi Jr. are making moves to transcend the jangle box”
Northern Transmission
8/10 - "With every successive album, the Toronto-via-Charlottetown quartet shows off increasingly sophisticated and expansive songwriting skills.”
Charlottetown Guardian
"Potential album of the year contender.”
The Guardian UK - Best of 2021
"And for pure jangly catchiness, it is hard to look past the Canadian outfit Kiwi Jr’s Cooler Returns positioned perfectly between the Strokes, Parquet Courts and Pavement.”
Aquarium Drunkard - Best of 2021
"This one may have been released in literally the very first week of 2021, but it never strayed far from rotation. A truly jubilant sound echoing The Clean and Orange Juice but with the punch of contemporary indie, and wry and winking vocals that remind what the ‘90s had to offer underground."
Pop Matters - Best of 2021
"Kiwi Jr take the jangliest of guitars and dribble enigmatic observations all over them. Light-hearted and exhilarating enough to make you stop caring and too catchy for its own good."
Louder Than War - Best of 2021
"US slacker/college pop meets UK post-punk and indie with a smattering of folky/Americana influences. Kiwi Jr’s world is the perfect anecdote to the real world in 2020/21."
Rock & Roll Globe - Best of 2021
"Kiwi Jr take the jangliest of guitars and dribble enigmatic observations all over them. Light-hearted and exhilarating enough to make you stop caring and too catchy for its own good."
God Is In The TV - Best of 2021
"Kiwi Jr are sending over the kind of shot in the arm we actually need to lift those moods from the doldrums where they linger and fester till black and mouldy. Because even a few tracks from this utter beauty of an LP and you’re grinning like the richest of those Alderley Edge Cheshire Fat Cats locking down in their palatials with indoor swimming pools and home cinema rooms."
Rock & Folk
**** 4 stars "L'année 2021 ne pouvait mieux commencer qu'avec cet excellent disque a l’entrain communicatif, d’une inspiration jubilatoire, veritable rayon de soleil au cour de l’hiver”
Les Inrock
"Les quatre musiciens de Toronto ne changent pas leur formule gagnante et livrent une guitare jangly élégante et efficace."
OOR
"Nee, geen Nieuw-Zeelanders, maar een Canades band met pittige en puntige gitaarliedjes - we ouden ze voeger hebben geschaard onder college rock. Ook de referenties zijn dik in orde: the Chills, The Strokes, The Kinks, Pavement en de vroege R.E.M. Fonkelende gitaarplaat die refereert aan heden en verleden.”
NME
"A jangly, indie rock earworm that’ll lodge itself in your brain."
MOJO
**** 4 stars “Sustaining momentum near-flawlessly across 13 songs… Kiwi Jr. have the skills to match their smarts."
PITCHFORK
"Sardonic storytelling and mocking asides...an impatient, slacker-rock imagining of a folk album....some chords ring out with George Harrison glossiness while others are as shaggy and impetuous as The Clean —rarely do hi-fi and lo-fi splendors coexist so harmoniously.”
Uncut
"Canadian absurdists’ return is a lyrical delight."
DIY
**** 4 stars “The band rattle through a seemingly inexhaustible supply of hooks and melodies.”
Narc
**** 4 stars "A bloody good album full of vivid charm."
AV Club
"Kiwi Jr. songs unfold like the aisles of a cluttered curio shop, their retro-rock melodies overflowing with non sequiturs and hyper-specific scraps of story."
Exclaim!
8/10 "Packed with golden hooks and subtle weirdness."
Clash Music
8/10 “Crammed full of wry, observational wit and pop smarts in taut fashion.”
Louder Than War
“Perfect pop-songs.”
Shindig
**** 4 stars “Angular, catchy as hell, revved up power-pop racket.”
God Is In The TV
9/10 “They understand sarcasm, can write clever, funny lyrics and don’t take themselves completely seriously."
Line Of Best Fit
8/10 “What sets Kiwi Jr. apart from their peers though is their madcap view of the world and Cooler Returns establishes them as a band too confident to conform; a band who have all the skills to match their lyrical smarts.”
The Guardian or was it The Observer?
**** 4 stars “...The accomplished successor to this band’s promising 2019 debut finds Kiwi Jr having their cake and eating it.”
Brooklyn Vegan
“Cooler Returns is all hits, a baker's dozen of ridiculously catchy three-minute pop nuggets that deliver massive sing-along-choruses.”
Uproxx
"Shambolic yet catchy songs are loaded with fractured riffs and lyrical non-sequiturs."
Guardian
“For pure jangly catchiness, it is hard to look past the Canadian outfit Kiwi Jr’s Cooler Returns.”
Rock & Roll Globe
“Melding Sloan’s northern cheeriness with Pavement’s (or maybe Vampire Weekend’s) love of obtusely delightful poetic word salads that might just mean something, Kiwi Jr. hypnotize with their sophomore record.”
7.7 rating "With easy hooks, surprise structural twists, and a gift for non-sequiturs, the Canadian quartet’s debut is a vivid portrait of the big-city struggle...Gaudet has such a witty way with one-liners, and the band is so effervescent in their execution, that it’s easy to overlook the elevated level of craft at work."
8/10 rating "Each [song] is filled to the rafters with deliriously catchy riffs. [It's] one of those rare albums that gets better the more you play it as all those wonderful throw-away lines get lodged in your head until the next one knocks it out.... There is something about Kiwi Jr. that is hard to ignore. They sound like a mixture of all the best bits of R.E.M., The Kinks, The Strokes, The Modern Lovers,Pavement and Lou Reed..."
SHINDIG:
**** 4 stars “With impressionistic lyrics, breathless Jonathan Richman meets Richard Hell vocals, and more than a passing nod to early REM, Kiwi Jr re-imagine punk and folk-rock as part of the same glorious lineage.”
UNCUT:
"Packs a melodic punch — one that, echoing its most infectious track, will you leave you chanting 'gimme more gimme more more more'."
"The band may pull from influences across the ages but there’s no one else doing it the way they do. Football Money is Kiwi Jr. taking their shot. Shots fired! Anyone firing back? Kiwi Jr. has raised the bar at the start of the year. I doubt anyone can compete with the band’s pop brashness."
ALLMUSIC:
**** 4.5 stars / Editor's Choice: "Excellent songwriting and a surplus of surprising melodic ideas and lyrical wit can't be outshined by the band's deceptively loose approach." PASTE: 8.1 rating "A sweet sunshine hit of melody-forward songwriting..."
POPMATTERS:
"'Football Money' stitches together a slew of tracks that could easily stand alone as singles without overstaying their welcome for a minute."
IRISH TIMES:
***** 5 stars: "Short, sharp and defined bursts of new wave pop that are over before you have time to figure out the tune"
BIG TAKEOVER:
"A bevy of anecdotes and sassy, offhand observations in the face of this combo’s agile and curiously catchy arrangements, wherein chiming chords are an extra layer of icing on an already irresistible cake. Football is precisely the type of record that materializes when a band actually prioritizes songwriting."
THE WIRE:
"Truly infectious”
NOW:
"Delightful as fuck”
8/10 "Naive enough to be charming"
“With any luck, though, this is just the beginning of Kiwi Jr, a group arriving with an almost staggeringly coherent vision, but also with enough of a sense of humor to not take that vision too seriously, either.”
“Incredibly charismatic and lyrically witty…”
Bristol in Stereo/Live Review:
“Throughout their breezy set, the band kept an upbeat and engaging raport with the audience and their memorable and catchy tunes are just as fun and infectious when played live as they are on the LP.”
