I came to say the same thing. 7.9, the highest rating since RTTS. I'm amazed Islands have avoided any real backlash from pfork.
My favorite part is this paragraph that praises the stripped down songs, which has been a common point of criticism so far.
Confessional intimacy needs an intimate setting to match, so the behind-the-boards inclusion of Rob Schnapf, who co-produced a large amount of Elliott Smith's discography, was an inspired choice. Schnapf keeps things as unfussy as possible, which is fitting since A Sleep & a Forgetting is a particularly unfussy album of capital-S "songs." As with Human Highway and Mister Heavenly, Thorburn's still drawing from garage-pop and singer/songwriter sounds of yester-yesteryear, but save for a few minor flourishes here and there-- the chilled-veins AOR pop of "This Is Not a Song", a "96 Tears"-worthy lick of dirty organ that writhes through "Can't Feel My Face"-- there's nothing that distracts from the songwriting, which is unarguably as strong as it's been since the Nick Diamonds' days as a Unicorn.
http://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/162 ... orgetting/