If this writer has one bone to pick with Lashley and Illuminator, it’s that the album is too damned short. From start to all-too-early finish, the melodies catch you pretty quickly.  – Dying Scene

…sometimes an album is so good it grabs you, holds you spellbound and immobile until it is finished with you. And then you hit the play button again. You want to tell everyone about this album, so that you can talk about it with them, so you can see that experience play over their faces, but you are trapped. Lenny Lashley’s album, Illuminator, is one of these. – Big Wheel Magazine

…this album, this lonely and brilliant thing, the hard-won concord he’s able to anthemize, the desolation he balladates–he gives it his therapy, he trusts his zen assets, his songs, to a world/audience/void he knows isn’t going to fix much for him, but it’s still stabilizing to try–still a flexing of trust like what happens after finally seeing your parents as mortal, mistaken people, or watching a loved one move out, or standing by while a career demystifies without reward–it all comes back to you and things you can’t keep from admitting to yourself and finding a strength you can build with after that deconstruction. – Nine Bullets

On first listen those who hear “Hooligans” will recognize the song for precisely what it is: a classic indie rock anthem in the Replacements and Gaslight Anthem tradition but with a distinctly Bostonian flavor. – Hellbound