Uncut's Top 50 Albums of 2011

Original Source →

49.

February 15, 2011
Critic Score
66
8 reviews

48.

March 15, 2011
Critic Score
74
10 reviews
It fuses disparate cultures with such joyous irreverence that, for 40 inspirational minutes, entire notions of national borders and racial divides cease to exist.

46.

January 7, 2011
Critic Score
80
19 reviews
Not bad for four young men barely out of their teens playing rowdy, undiluted hardcore. That has a lot to do with the excellence of their debut album.

45.

September 20, 2011
Critic Score
76
6 reviews

44.

April 19, 2011
Critic Score
85
33 reviews
She has fashioned a still eccentric but bracingly focused collection of songs that blend her acrobatic and soulful Afro-jazz vocals with a collage music that defies any attempts at categorization.

43.

September 12, 2011
Critic Score
86
37 reviews

42.

April 26, 2011
Critic Score
80
4 reviews

41.

May 10, 2011
Critic Score
78
14 reviews

40.

November 21, 2011
Critic Score
86
38 reviews
From austere, absurd materials, the cumulative effect is remarkable.

37.

July 26, 2011
Critic Score
74
32 reviews

Ritual Union makes it three alums without a remotely duff--or dull--moment.

36.

Jonny - Jonny
February 1, 2011
Critic Score
65
10 reviews

34.

Fatoumata Diawara - Fatou
September 27, 2011
Critic Score
79
3 reviews

33.

April 12, 2011
Critic Score
81
31 reviews

32.

February 22, 2011
Critic Score
78
28 reviews

If I'm New Here was a triumph for Russell and Scott-Heron, We're New Here reveals a maverick production talent in Jamie Smith that his band's records have only hinted at.

31.

January 25, 2011
Critic Score
85
30 reviews
Unique, captivating stuff.

30.

February 14, 2011
Critic Score
84
19 reviews
His primary source is a pipe organ in an Icelandic church, which he processes, filters, deconsecrates, muddles and distorts, and therefore liberates in the course of this album, enabling its latent potential to escape from its wooden room and form a burgeoning cloudscape.

29.

April 8, 2011
Critic Score
81
20 reviews
As ever, Simon's work is a strange mix of easy and uneasy listening--it's balm, but it leaves an itch.

27.

October 11, 2011
Critic Score
80
38 reviews
You may not be whistling these songs or dancing to them, but Biophilia's unsettling visions are compelling art.

26.

January 14, 2011
Critic Score
73
37 reviews
The Decemberists' most immediate and outgoing album.

24.

October 18, 2011
Critic Score
75
32 reviews
More than a specific era, Real Estate conjure a sense of place and experience as vividly as any US indie film of the past five years.

21.

February 4, 2011
Critic Score
82
37 reviews
Like fellow minimalists The xx, Blake takes from dubstep an awareness of space and silence; he appreciates the power of a perfectly weighted pause.

20.

Ry Cooder - Pull Up Some Dust and Sit Down
August 29, 2011
Critic Score
88
13 reviews
In the transition from imitator to originator, the old boy has made one of his best albums ever.

19.

February 15, 2011
Critic Score
72
21 reviews

18.

August 30, 2011
Critic Score
76
13 reviews

17.

October 4, 2011
Critic Score
78
35 reviews
It's this insistence on resolutely following her instincts that makes this record so lustily appealing from top to bottom.

16.

September 13, 2011
Critic Score
70
8 reviews

15.

September 27, 2011
Critic Score
81
37 reviews
While the album is packed with inventive moments, there's no more lacerating skronk, for a very good reason: the emotions the band is mirroring don't call for it.

14.

March 8, 2011
Critic Score
78
27 reviews
The real heart of this record seems to lie in moments of stillness and rest, where strung-out slackerdom attains an almost sacred quality.

13.

October 25, 2011
Critic Score
87
42 reviews

Bad As Me is the sound of a supremely confident artist convening a raucous celebration of his own myth, and is multifariously marvellous.

12.

May 3, 2011
Critic Score
83
40 reviews

Helplessness Blues is as passionately desolate as anything on Closer, the record which documented Ian Curtis' romantic guilt and existential confusion.

10.

August 16, 2011
Critic Score
78
31 reviews
Something's happening wherever you turn on tracks that are dense with detail and brilliant accumulations of incident, but never overwrought or too busy, sheer grace their common link.

9.

June 21, 2011
Critic Score
85
41 reviews

Fully realised in its ambition, Bon Iver possesses all the austere beauty and understated emotiveness of its predecessor.

8.

May 9, 2011
Critic Score
81
33 reviews
It is not only Wild Beats' finest album to date, but one of the best you're likely to hear all year.

7.

February 18, 2011
Critic Score
75
41 reviews

The King of Limbs passes like a breeze, and has you skipping back to the start as soon as the final track fades out.

5.

March 29, 2011
Critic Score
82
23 reviews
Josh Pearson has gone there so we don't have to--we should be grateful he's returned to tell the tale.

4.

May 23, 2011
Critic Score
75
19 reviews

2.

June 28, 2011
Critic Score
86
25 reviews

The Harrow and the Harvest is kin to not dissimilar works by Uncle Earl, Crooked Still, Kate Fagan, even Steve Earle's rumbustious bluegrass outing with Del McCoury--and blessed by the insuperable advantage of Welch's voice.

1.

February 14, 2011
Critic Score
89
44 reviews

Let England Shake is the sound of someone as maddened as they are enthralled, aglow with anger and passion.

Original Source: http://www.uncut.co.uk/news/pj_harvey/news/15294
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