Grimes - Art Angels
Critic Score
Based on 36 reviews
2015 Ratings: #25 / 1021
Year End Rank: #4
User Score
2015 Rank: #32
Liked by 590 people
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
NOW Magazine

Boucher herself has come out to claim her music as genre-less, but the Art Angels incarnation of Grimes is through-and-through Frankenstein pop, influenced by so many irresistible sounds ... smashed together, somehow coming out just the right way.

100
Exclaim!
Grimes has given us a complete record that's everything pop should be in 2015: utterly uncompromising, imaginative and, somehow, universally accessible.
100
The Telegraph

All adds up to a fearless and fascinating record.

100
DIY
It’s impossible to resist the instant, limb-grabbing appeal of the pop music Grimes is making here, and dizzyingly big, this is a record about shaking off every constraint, and wrenching hold of reality with both fists.
100
Pretty Much Amazing

She’s crafted a glorious pop monster entirely by her own mind, hand, and voice. Part dazzling confection, part snarling beast, Art Angels is a stitched together, hook ridden masterwork.

91
A.V. Club
It’s slick and gritty, fun and funny, and horrifying and grotesque all at once. It will also make you shake your ass like nothing else.
91
Consequence of Sound

After Visions, the only thing Grimes could do was to grow as big as the landscape around her. Here’s her mountain.

90
Billboard

Art Angels is a marvel of meticulous, even obsessive home-studio recording, uncompromised by bandmates or collaborators.

90
The Sydney Morning Herald
With her fourth album, Claire Boucher has escalated from mischievous EDM to open taunts, and a few people must feel their ears burning.
90
PopMatters

Art Angels is an uncompromisingly colorful conception of pop music’s kaleidoscopic future, a clash between modern dance pop conventions and the independent sensibility of a singular artist.

90
Northern Transmissions

Amidst these unpredictable soundscapes, the choruses are so catchy and touching that it’s easy to forget just how weird this music is, and that’s what makes it such a thrill.

90
GIGsoup
Not many self-sufficient artists could create such a beautiful beast.
85
Pitchfork
Here, she closes the gap between the pop she's idolized and the pop she is capable of.
85
The 405

Visions put Grimes on the map as pop's pure misfit but Art Angels secured her tangible place as the genre's most unconventional star. For those that doubted, she's done that thing she does, but better. More defined.

85
Spectrum Culture

Art Angels is what a pop album would sounds like if you took the top 10 chart and deliberately swapped everything for unexpected patterns and instruments.

82
Resident Advisor

Art Angels wipes the fog from her lens and lays out her vision, clear and uncompromising.

80
The Independent

It’s not so much that she’s changed direction completely, as that she’s drained her art of the obfuscating sonic blabber to leave her pop aesthetic.

80
Crack Magazine

While Art Angels is a thrilling listen by design, some songs can’t carry through the excitement of some of the bigger sounds on the album.

80
FLOOD Magazine

She may be glossier now, but, there’s plenty on Art Angels to recommend to her initial fan base.

80
Mojo
Crackling with radio-primed hooks, whipsnap breakbeats and Boucher’s helium-pitched vocals, Grimes’ third album makes a convincing strike for playlist ubiquity, with a healthy dollop of the oddball chucked in.
80
Drowned in Sound

In its ability to appeal to so many listeners, while being as thrilling on its first spin as it is on its fifteenth, Art Angels is likely to emerge from 2015 as one of the most universally adored albums of the year.

80
Uncut

You sense the deceptively complex Art Angels will only continue to yield further depths with time.

80
Clash

This is the truest representation of Grimes we’ve heard yet: 'Art Angels' is boundary pushing, it’s listenable and it’s Boucher’s most ambitious and most consistent work to date.

80
FasterLouder

There’s something that feels tangibly joyful on Art Angels that we didn’t hear on Visions.

80
Under the Radar
Grimes manages to face mounting hype with a skillful redefinition of boundaries. It may be new territory, but she's navigating it pretty damn well.
80
SPIN

It’s a triumph of Grimes as gloriously and unapologetically DIY producer, a pop singer politically and emotionally invested in your knowing that she made this all on her own — as if anything workshopped with a team of songwriters could sound so bracing and unpredictable.

80
NME

It would be reductive to call this record Boucher's ‘Grimes goes Pop’ moment, but it certainly feels like an attempt to bridge the gap between her fervent online cult and tangible, real-world success.

80
AllMusic

It could all lead to sonic whiplash, but Boucher's staunchly independent viewpoint is the glue that holds together Art Angels.

80
musicOMH
Claire Boucher is very good at making pop music. Strange, esoteric pop music that sounds like something not quite of this world, but which manages to remain totally accessible.
80
Tiny Mix Tapes
With pacing like a serial manga franchise, the album shines through its relentless ability to grow on you, despite all odds.
70
Slant Magazine
There's still some room for Boucher to further focus her ambitions, but this album is the surest evidence so far that she's game for the challenge.
70
Rolling Stone
The big news on her fourth album is how much she's upped her game as a writer and a singer, giving her music new polish and resonance.
70
The Needle Drop

Grimes returns with a diverse, well-produced pop album that's both accessible and odd.

60
The Line of Best Fit

Somehow she's always managed to tread a rare, thin line between catchy left-field creations and catchy mainstream pop. On Art Angels, we hear that high art experimentation fall into mainstream territory with only fleeting moments of brilliance.

60
The Observer

Packed as it is with all this goodness, Art Angels fails to comprehensively blow your mind. Ultimately, Grimes has not reinvented the pop wheel, she’s just driven it off road a little.

40
God Is in the TV

Although, it’s still admirably produced completely by Boucher – when she could have easily sacrificed control – the clarity of her sound is significantly greater.

estenaosoueu
93

It's a good pop album. Deal with it hipsters!

gabromzk
100

I don't get the hate. I love this album. I don't think is too mainstream. If you don't like her previous release you never gonna like this. The best pop album of 2015 so far. Best tracks: California, Flesh Without Blood, Kill V. Maim, World Princess part II, Realiti, Venus Fly. The whole album is a standout.

Host
85

It's such a shame that grimes lost her way, because at her peak she was making pop music that was crazy, intriguing, and innovative. DAMN YOU ELON!!!!!!

itsviolence
85

easily sucks ass there had 2 be one and also why did realiti have to be cut from the vinly like cmon. anyways always find myself coming back to this album but defo the second half more often

alexeyglukhov
77

A 77 is what i give this album.

Meistro
65

There are many songs on this record that I am absolutely in love with, the atmosphere of this album is so dreamy, it feels like a combination of 90s pop and electronic music, love how detailed the production is. Sadly, I felt like this album is really inconsistent in what it wants to be, every track feels so stylistically different that it doesn't fit together as one whole package. I enjoyed a lot of songs off of this, I want to inject "Kill V. Maim" and "Realiti" into my ... read more

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Added on: October 20, 2015