Along the Way is a solo studio album by Mark McGuire, a former member of Emeralds. It was released on Dead Oceans on February 4, 2014.[1] "The Instinct" was released as a single from the album.[2]
At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 75, based on 14 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[3]
Fred Thomas of AllMusic gave the album 4 stars out of 5, commenting that "Along the Way represents the most ambitious material from McGuire to date, including deeper production and a plethora of various instruments that never made it into the laser-focused explorations of solo guitar that made up previous albums."[4] He added: "It's an incredible feat for an artist to make something so enormous and unfolding without losing himself in the process, but McGuire has done just that, and as a result has turned in his most detailed and soul-searching work."[4] Tom Fenwick of Under the Radar gave the album 7 stars out of 10, writing: "Carving out layers of sound from digital percussion, distant auto-tuned vocals, and washes of synthesized atmospherics, he surrounds them with his virtuosic playing of electric and acoustic guitar."[13]