User:Cullen328/sandbox/tristeza

Critical reception
CMJ New Music Monthly described Tristeza's style in a review of their album, Dream Signals in Full Circles, "A typical Tristeza track involves a down-shifted take on emo's rhythmic lopsidedness, beds of washy, behind-the-beat keyboards, and Christopher Sprague's arpeggiated, effect-drenched guitar melodies. It's all adeptly played, but the point is less individual virtuosity than collective compositional panache."

Piero Scaruffi wrote, "San Diego's Tristeza seemed to wed new-age music and instrumental post-rock with the slow, gentle pieces of Spine and Sensory (1999)."

The New York Times described the musicianship of one of the bands guitarists, "Jimmy LaValle, one of the guitarists in the San Diego band Tristeza, creates peaceful, glittering galaxies of electronics and soft guitar" in a review of one of his solo performances.