"Athens, Ohio's Southeast Engine see the light and release a rock opera of self-doubt and redemption... the music often matches the soul dividing sturm und drang driving the disc. It's rock opera, part Dante, part indie du jour, bombastic, to be sure, but never hectoring as it makes its way to moral détente."
-Pitchfork Media

***Paste Magazine - Top 10 Albums of 2007 - #2 - Writer Picks***
"...And perhaps that's why Southeast Engine—Athens natives a few years removed from the graduation ceremony, and still hanging out in that idyllic little college town—sound like they do. You can tell that lead singer/songwriter Adam Remnant has his English degree, and he drops enough literary references to make sure you know he's spent some time in old Ellis Hall. But there's a restlessness and desperation at the heart of his music that suggests that the old Athens malaise has already set in, and that feeling trapped isn't the exclusive domain of suburban executives with midlife crises and cherry red sports cars... There are three albums now - Love Is A Murder, Coming to Terms with Gravity, and the new one, A Wheel Within A Wheel, which is one of my favorite albums of 2007." - Andy Whitman
-Paste Magazine

Brooklyn Vegan: "Other albums I can strongly recommend include Southeast Engine's Misra debut, "A Wheel Within a Wheel."

***Jambase - Best Albums of 2007 - Cook's Corner***
"Not once have I been able to stop myself from hitting repeat when "A Wheel Within A Wheel" ends. Two or three spins are necessary each time to really roll around in all the pleasures hiding here. Don't be surprised if you clap your hands or sing loud enough to bother folks in the car next to you. Southeast Engine are super smart, rock savvy guys and they've made a great record for thinkers who love power chords and heartbreaking ruminations"
-Jambase

"And this is the story of A Wheel Within a Wheel: bold new influences fused so closely to the structure of these songs that, while each is facially striking during its sonic out thrust, by the end of any given song it has been reabsorbed and contextualized. These songs flit away from comfortable Americana and folk momentarily, with precision and intensity, but return to their base just as quickly... Southeast Engine have made their most interesting album to date."
-Coke Machine Glow

"Ezekiel's sighting of the fiery wheel is one of the Old Testament's most psychedelic moments, a fantastic conglomeration of images centered around a wheel within a wheel. That's the inspiration for this third album by Southeast Engine, a six-piece indie rock band headed by songwriter Adam Remnant. The album is shot through with religious imagery, but like the wheel, impossible to read in any literal way. It's sort of mystic contemplation of life-long love, spiritual struggle, midlife confusion and renewal..."
-Pop Matters

"...the one thing that every review should acknowledge is that A Wheel Within a Wheel is a poignant and pleasant album that finds Southeast Engine refining their sound to come up with a glowing mix of country, folk, rock, and pop... a sort of modern, indie rock survey of American music."
-30 Music

"The band's brand of genre ambiguity might stem from its relative isolation: Cutting its teeth in Athens, Ohio, the act so far had the grace to come to grips with its identity more or less removed from the national spotlight. It's a luxury few bands get when the hyper-connected devote their lives to scouring the 'net for new music, and it gives Southeast Engine a sense of self that many bands making their semi-debut wouldn't have... Southeast Engine has that slow-fired, laid-back feel you'd expect from traditional alt-country types, but spruces it up with a dose of indie-kid charm."
-Aversion

The cover of their forthcoming Misra Records release, A Wheel Within A Wheel, depicts a pastoral landscape with a massive, fusty, spoked wheel which is half in light and half in darkness and partially ablaze, floating menacingly above the earth. In this case, you can judge an album by its cover. This is their third full-length and it's as fearless as their past work, if not more so. The instrumentation switches from sparse to dense and visits all points in-between, but it is the vacillation of the drums and percussion that is the most striking. Normally the stalwart in popular music, SE allows them to fluctuate or disappear completely, underscoring the album's theme of uncertainty. As the title would suggest, many lyrics are inspired by biblical verse and several songs have a distinctive Gospel feel, but it's primarily Armageddon-obsessed Folk and not inspirational pap. Like a decrepit rope bridge, this album will test your faith as you traverse it, but you'll be glad you did.
-Citybeat

Picture this: a young, married and recently unemployed Athens, OH middle school teacher. Screams front-man, right? Well, maybe not, but it will after you listen to A Wheel Within A Wheel, which was written and performed by the aforementioned former educator, Adam Remnant, along with the rest of Southeast Engine, or just the Engine, if you happen to be an Athens local. Part clap-along pop rock (check out “Taking the Fall”), part neighbourhood saloon twang (“Let It Be So”), the third full-length record from this newly signed band fuses these two styles as if they were always meant to be one. And don’t be fooled by the Book of Ezekiel-influenced title or the sometimes Bible-referencing lyrics — this really isn’t a religious record. So, if you were hoping for the next Creed, Southeast Engine aren’t it.
Thank God. (Misra)
-Exclaim

Southeast Engine are a 6-piece band from Athens, Ohio, fronted by a redundant ex-middle school teacher who make music like a kinder, gentler Wilco. On this third album, the band continue to explore their musical Americana path, combining alternative-folk with a Midwest biblical spirituality, a fantastic lead vocal and a great warm rock sound. While the band's sound is almost anti-fashion, A Wheel Within A Wheel is wholly modern - Quit While You're Ahead would be the best thing Interpol had done in the past two years; We Have You Surrounded is a song fit for Spoon's Ga Ga Ga Ga Ga.
The Christian theme running through the songs fits with the way that Uncle Tupelo used to pull down traditional folk songs - here the exploration is more philosophical, with some measure of bitterness and wonder. It would be easy for this album to fly past unannounced, but it has a cohesion and a quality that's rare - it's more enjoyable than any Wilco album has been since A.M. When it's over, you'll feel better for having spent the past 40 minutes in its company, and you'll be reaching for the play button again. Album of the week.
Rating 9/10
Mike Rea
-Contact Music

A Wheel Within A Wheel paints a beautiful and deeply human portrait of a muddled journey through existential confusion. Remnant peers into himself with heartfelt lyrics that shimmer with beatific grace, tenderly pondering aloud what it is to be alive, to be mortal and how exactly to go about it. The unadulterated humanity that lies coiled at the core of Remnant’s poetic musings is positively captivating.
-Speakeasy

"...there must be something special in the middle-Ohio water table that fed Robert Pollard in Dayton, with young middle school teacher Adam Remnant from Athens following in his footsteps with an indie stunner that’s joyous, pained, buoyant, spiritual, and kitchen window pensive."
-Anchorage Press

"Never heard of 'em before tonight, but will definitely be keeping an eye on them going forward. Kind of an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink Americana blend. Part of me thinks that there's a jam band inside trying to get out too, but thankfully there were no 7 minute guitar noodle-a-thons. Oh, and nice hat."
-Steady Stew

"...Southeast Engine has earned its spot in 2005’s List. While the clever honesty in Adam Remnant’s vocal delivery and the haunting backing track in “Gravity” sets it apart, the remainder of the album is as solid as they come."
-The Toaster Talks

"This band hails from the Appalachian town where I went to college, Athens, OH. They mix classic and indie rock with the countrified and folk elements of the Southeastern Ohio region. The performance was secured with potent arrangements enriched by layers of guitars and keyboards"
-Melody Trip

"Southeast Engine is fronted by a married, unemployed middle school teacher from Athens, Ohio. If that doesn't tip you off to the manic melancholy you'll hear in the music, then perhaps you were home- schooled. As the band's bio says, Athens ain't the cradle of democracy and it ain't even the most famous Athens in college music circles. It ain't truly the South nor truly the Midwest, either. Athens is perpetually something between here and there. You'll hear strains of Bright Eyes, Will Oldham, Neutral Milk Hotel, Josh Ritter, and even Bruce Springsteen in these tracks. Yet the cornucopia of styles don't clash, they just come together like good, honest music from somewhere in America."
-3hive.com