Dents and Shells is the sixth album by singer-songwriter Richard Buckner, released in 2004 by Merge Records.

[1] In an 8/10 Pitchfork review, Brian Howe wrote, "Since that first album, Buckner has created increasingly more ephemeral, impressionistic gradations of tone and mood.

Dents and Shells continues to explore Buckner's shadowy continent of song, a Symbolist mirror-world where bright glints of detail fleetingly flash, then submerge, cloaked in shifting fogs...

While strongly rooted in classic folk, Buckner's songs are rendered pristinely strange by their smallness and smeariness-- they're vast, dim topographies described by chords that are barely there, recondite realms of visions and visitations.

"[2] In a 3.5 star review comparing Buckner to Elliott Smith and Lou Reed, Darcie Stevens of the Austin Chronicle wrote, "Without elation or regret, Buckner speaks stories, explanations of missteps and wrong turns, contemplations of lost loves and past lives.