Auf Der Maur (album) - Reception

Reception

Auf der Maur entered the US Billboard Heatseekers chart at number 8 and remained there for two weeks and also peaked at number 187 on the Billboard 200. As of 2006, the album had sold 35,000 copies in the United States, according to Nielsen SoundScan. The album sold an additional 165,000 copies worldwide, bringing the total sales to 200,000.

Auf der Maur was generally well received by music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 62, based on 19 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews." Allmusic reviewer Stephen Thomas Erlewine awarded the album three out of five stars, noting that the album had "a certain nostalgic appeal" and "it's a little slicker and more polished" than her previous work but added that the album's themes were "little embarrassing and juvenile." Alternative Press awarded the album four out of five stars, adding that "the disc's bread and butter is Auf Der Maur's smoking riffs." Keith Phipps of The A.V. Club said that "though Auf Der Maur is never objectionably bad, there's nothing the least bit distinctive about it" and called it "Billy Corgan-inspired, arena-scale, guitar-driven introspective musery" in his three out of ten review. In his review for the BBC, Matt Wicks described the album as "excellent" and "like the Pumpkins in their prime" and compared Auf der Maur to other female contemporaries such as Shirley Manson and PJ Harvey. Blender gave a majorly positive review, awarding the album three out of five stars, but criticized Auf der Maur's vocals, stating: "buffeted by big guitars, her thin, untrained voice occasionally sounds listless."

Tom Edwards of Drowned in Sound noted that the "opening trio of tracks are the most convincing" and the album "still has all the hallmarks of the debut record it has the great songs that have been collected over years in the bedroom and on the road" in his seven out of ten review. Entertainment Weekly gave the album a C+ grade with reviewer David Browne describing the album as "professional, commercial alt-rock that takes flight intermittently" but "the monolithic sound also feels dated and drab" and summarised that Auf der Maur was "the perfect CD for 1995, released too late." Adam Sweeting of The Guardian described the album's songs as "powerful and finely crafted" and "soared", though adding that some were "multi-layered", and awarded the album three out of five stars. NME awarded the album eight out of ten and said that " the mix of stingingly personal lyrics" and "bruisingly heavy music just draws you in even further, while the crunchy production is so massive, so physical, the music fills every in of space it comes into contact with" and Q referred to the album as "a revelation," awarding it four out of five stars.