-URChicago
"There were always good reasons to hang around the unapologetic spaz in every high school class. Wearing mismatched argyle socks and They Might Be Giants t-shirts in seemingly endless combinations and snorting rails from PixyStix off his homeroom desk, he was off-center, self-aware, and just plain fun. Local postpunk trio Paper Mice is that same breed of spaz. The band's 2009 debut, Paint It Pink (Cassette Deck), is a jagged, stop-start mess of rhythmic tics and awkward face-plants - most the 16 songs are just over a minute long, probably because any more at once would give somebody a seizure. It's peculiar and all over the damn place, but Paper Mice have the talent to make good on their ambition, bouncing X-treem angular guitar and twangy bass back and forth off each other in a sort of jerky yet choreo-graphed disco groove. It all gives me that familiar feeling I get when I don't know what the hell is going on with a band but I'm pretty sure it's mind-meltingly bizarre and awesome. Paper Mice are currently wrapping up their sophomore album, tentatively title The Funny Papers, which they plan to release in March."
- Chicago Reader
"Spastic local three-piece Paper Mice are appropriately signed to Three One G, Justin Pearson of the Locust's San Diego–based label, and deftly exhibit all the snotty, wild-yet-abbreviated explosiveness of the imprint's heyday."
"Paper Mice, whose 2009 release Paint It Pink refuses to get off my turntable, provided just the kind of show I'd come to expect from them: technical and spastic math punk that carries bizarre, urgent lyrics, all delivered with precision and swagger. Though the crowd had thinned a bit in the wee hours of the night, Paper Mice had a sizable contingent of booze-addled enthusiasts bopping along to their trippy bass lines and nerve-wracking melodies. The set came off like the score toa cyberpunk noir, transporting the crowd to an alien landscape where mystery skittered in every shadow. Is that a red-dressed blond in the alley calling to me, or a sloppy, squid-like alien who's likely to chomp my gonads? Turns out it was a song about 'the time Dolly Parton lost a Dolly Parton look-alike contest to a man in drag.' I can't make this stuff up, and neither can Paper Mice, to a degree, as most of the night's tunes were inspired by wonky news stories. The group's singer shouts his goofball lyrics with a mesmerizing conviction that's usually reserved for lyricists wailing about relationship problemns. That delivery over the group's cohesive jumbling makes for an undeniably fun live experience. Zig-zag guitar riffs and stuttered percussion kept the audience on their toes throughout the show, and in the end Paper Mice left everyone sweaty and grinning. Not a bad way to be after all is said and done."
- Windy City Rock