Dark Days + Canapés

Ghostpoet - Dark Days + Canapés
Critic Score
Based on 22 reviews
2017 Ratings: #275 / 940
User Score
Based on 72 ratings
2017 Rank: #423
Liked by 5 people
August 18, 2017 / Release Date
LP / Format
PIAS / Label
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CRITIC REVIEWS

100
The Independent

The trip-hop rhythms may have been replaced by a more varied range of beats ... but the mood and manner of Ghostpoet’s fourth album is steeped in much the same themes and textures, hauled up to date and delivered in a nonchalant deadpan akin to Roots Manuva.

81
GIGsoup

Ghostpoet continues his hypnotic accounts of the social and political climate of inner city life, always the urban messenger.

80
musicOMH
Come the end of the year, this will no doubt be held up as one of the albums that held a mirror to its times. It also confirms Ejimiwe as one of this country’s most vital voices.
80
Mojo

Detailed with offbeat twists and turns, it warrants celebratory Appletinis all-round.

80
Clash

A fantastically uniformed piece, ‘Dark Days + Canapés’ boasts a rare sense of unity, the aural palette bringing together hugely disparate elements to conjure something of real impact.

80
The Skinny

Listening to Dark Days & Canapés, the world feels just that bit darker. The album is an expertly crafted assault on the fallacy that ignorance is bliss, an eye-opening invitation to see our society for what it really is.

80
DIY

It never sounds completely oppressive, balancing its darkest moments with some lighter tones, Ghostpoet’s starkest lyrics with slightly more optimistic meditations.

80
The 405

Dark Days + Canapés is quite simply Ghostpoet’s most accomplished record to date. As lyrically smart as his debut, and building on three albums’ worth of musical experimentation, it feels like Ejimiwe has finally found his niche. 

80
Under the Radar

Dark Days + Canapés is haunting and unnerving, pulled together by a musician who, this time, takes in not just personal strifes, but political angst too.

80
AllMusic
A stretch of the imagination might be needed to hear this album's multiple references to screaming as plausible, given that Obaro Ejimiwe delivers them in typically pensive, resigned fashion, and is not known for even raising his voice. Rest assured, everything else on the two-time Mercury Prize nominee's fourth Ghostpoet album throbs and churns with grim, gripping realism.
70
Loud and Quiet

You couldn’t describe this music as low key; rather, it’s consistently dark, claustrophobic and gripping.

70
The Line of Best Fit

An album that's more about personal politics than global ones, but that still feels scored through with the suffocating disquiet of life in 2017.

70
Drowned in Sound

Ghostpoet’s vocals are delivered in a consistent, mumbled, emotionally-drained understatement throughout, lending the album a sense of authenticity that it could not survive without.

69
Northern Transmissions

Dark Days + Canapes is a cool, unaffected album that deserves some close listening, though the rewards uncovered don’t go far beyond glum observations.

60
The Guardian

Poet and musician Obaro Ejimiwe’s fourth album opens with a groan. So the mood is set for the rest of this exhaustingly bleak record; a grey-skied documentation of modern hot-button issues.

MinatoArisato
60

A dark and gritty record, which has some cool ideas but ultimately lacks flair or charm.

Best Track: Many Moods At Midnight
Worst Track: Blind As a Bat...

ElisPlaylist
87

Kinda sounds like a weird mix between King Krule and Death Grips. I like it

Z.Younk
76

Best album of his career. He owns the deeper sound and though it's darker, his hooks are more accessible and memorable than ever.

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Added on: August 14, 2017