All Music Guide (www.allmusic.com)

Waterloo: In the Light of Day

* * * * (4/5 stars) Somewhere, there is an alternate universe where in the early '90s a band called Pavement got together and created several albums of carefully arranged, well-produced pop songs that combined a slight experimental edge with a knack for catchy melodies and thoughtful lyrics. In the meantime, there's Waterloo. This loosely affiliated collective centered around singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Mark Ray really does sound like Pavement might have if they'd had much interest in traditional songcraft and production: there's a quirky, lo-fi edge to their second album, In the Light of Day, and Ray has a similarly deadpan affect to his vocals as Stephen Malkmus, but these details are placed in service to some genuinely pretty songs. The folk-inflected "All That You Know" mixes diffident vocals and hazy, diffuse arrangements to an unexpectedly lovely English-style fiddle tune, and "Space Age Toys" weds the spaciness of prime Flaming Lips to a melody that could have graced a prime, mid-period R.E.M. album. There's not a duff track in the bunch, and Ray mixes and matches his influences so cleverly that by album's end In the Light of Day sounds appealingly fresh and unique.

— Stewart Mason, All Music Guide