The New York Times
“Gorgeous . . . . From a tradition of unnervingly confidential, light-voiced male singers: João Gilberto, Arthur Russell, Lou Barlow of Sebadoh, Elliott Smith, Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu.” —Ben Ratliff
LA RECORD
“Like an overcast Sunday or a poorly-timed stiff drink or the process of filling out the paperwork for a loved one’s emergency orotracheal intubation, Eric Lindley’s songs have the power to infuse the stretch of time they occupy with a sadness that’s incidental but devastating. These are songs that demand to be leaned into, but their bleakness could drown you if you’re not careful.”—Amalia Levari
The Deli “NYC Artist on the Rise”
“[Careful’s] tunes, tied together by a soft, whispered approach and by attention to texture, mix more or less traditional songwriting with sparse and dreamy electronic effects, often slightly dissonant, but always tastefully realized.”
NPR: All Songs Considered
“Eric Lindley plays intimate, quirky songs with layered vocals that flow over warm acoustic guitar. Lindley colors his soft harmonies and restrained writing style with carefully placed electronics.” —Bob Boilen
The Onion AV Club
“The New Yorker undercuts the basic singer-songwriter fixings with pitch-warped harmonies and instruments ranging from melodica to harmonium to jaw harp. Each part of Lindley’s arrangements quietly rises up to gently push the whole in a stranger direction. Even if you think you’ve heard the same effect before, from his aptly claimed influences Xiu Xiu and The Microphones, it’s hard not to admire Lindley’s subtle methods.”
WFMU
“Hauntingly melodic singer-songwriter Eric Lindley is the second coming of Skip Spence. Let’s hope he too does not lose his mind so we can all benefit from his immense talent for a long time to come.”—DJ Keili
Time Out New York
“Fronted by Eric Lindley, Careful is drawing a lot of praise from some hifalutin sources—and rightly so. Lindley makes spindly, sweet, spooky glitch folk music that recalls Bon Iver and Matmos in equal measure, as you can hear on his second album, Oh Light.”
NY Press
“Oh, Light is marked by a close, personal feeling at once eerily familiar and vaguely mysterious, keeping listeners engaged with a layered sound that reveals something new with each subsequent listening.” —Sean Kelly
Encore Magazine
“Eric Lindley is many things, including a writer, artist, and part-time robot builder. But [he is also] an incredibly talented musician. As Careful, Lindley mixes electronic and folk music, leading to a rarely heard sound.”
Dusted
“There’s a bit of a Venus flytrap phenomenon at work, as Lindley uses the most beautiful music to deliver disturbing lyrical content. But, in a way, that’s the appeal of a record like this, beautiful on its surface, serene and easy to listen to right way, but fraught with hidden complexity. Oh, Light is simultaneously as simple as a guy singing in your ear, and as intricately wrought and densely populated as a Terry Gilliam movie. You could spend a year trying to get the bottom of it, and why not?”
InDigest
“Hushed vocals and a slight guitar that sounds as though he’s just brushing the strings with his finger-tips. The whole record is really beautiful.”
Planetshifter
“Oh Light, Eric Lindley’s new album as Careful, is a well crafted example of sonic Alchemy. A unified and beautiful vision.”