Clash's Top 40 Albums of 2011

Original Source →

40.

May 16, 2011
Critic Score
74
27 reviews

38.

September 13, 2011
Critic Score
76
19 reviews

37.

Wagon Christ - Toomorrow
March 29, 2011
Critic Score
65
6 reviews

36.

Ricardo Donoso - Progress Chance
August 25, 2011
Critic Score
80
1 review

34.

May 23, 2011
Critic Score
75
19 reviews

31.

July 26, 2011
Critic Score
74
32 reviews
It’s dark and downbeat, smoky and soulful, and if you can get past the Duffy-esque intro, ‘Ritual Union’ is the rich vindication of Little Dragon’s slow burning upturn.

29.

October 11, 2011
Critic Score
71
9 reviews

28.

October 28, 2011
Critic Score
76
35 reviews
The follow-up to debut album ‘Lungs’ is a confident, cohesive effort.

27.

February 22, 2011
Critic Score
72
17 reviews

26.

June 21, 2011
Critic Score
85
41 reviews

It makes these ten tracks slightly less immediate, but just as moving. A wonderful, worthy follow-up.

25.

April 18, 2011
Critic Score
75
32 reviews

Undeniably formulaic but just as captivatingly beautiful, solemn closer ‘Let Me Back In’ is the track-stopping highlight, painstakingly building to a crescendo before the ghost voices drift out. Glorious.

 

24.

Bibio - Mind Bokeh
March 29, 2011
Critic Score
68
13 reviews

23.

September 27, 2011
Critic Score
81
37 reviews
An excellent return.

22.

October 18, 2011
Critic Score
75
40 reviews
There's a lot of slightly tedious ambient wallpaper. Sure, it works to unite an otherwise diverse set of songs, but you can't help but think there's a much better play list waiting to be whittled down.

19.

February 25, 2011
Critic Score
80
34 reviews
While opener ‘Youth Knows No Pain’ and the feisty single ‘Get Some’ both display Li’s ‘don’t-fuck-with-me’ sassiness, ‘Wounded Rhymes’ really takes off when she allows her vulnerability to leak.

18.

February 15, 2011
Critic Score
73
28 reviews

17.

May 24, 2011
Critic Score
72
25 reviews

15.

May 9, 2011
Critic Score
81
33 reviews

‘Smother’ does exactly what it suggests but with a poetic fragility and an exacting panache that enthrals and entices like never before. An essential album.

13.

May 3, 2011
Critic Score
83
40 reviews

Wistful and plaintive, solemn yet blissful, these are songs from another time – if not another planet – and their mesmerising melodies have the powerful ability to transport you, temporally and spatially, into the band’s anachronistic, peaceful, eternal summer.

12.

October 11, 2011
Critic Score
80
38 reviews
While much of the fuss around the album has centred on its innovative and hugely interactive app release, this music really doesn’t need any window dressing because it’s as good a collection of songs as she has put her name to in ten years.

11.

August 30, 2011
Critic Score
75
28 reviews

10.

July 12, 2011
Critic Score
78
30 reviews

8.

January 24, 2011
Critic Score
77
28 reviews
Adele is sincere, poignant and affecting throughout.

7.

April 5, 2011
Critic Score
76
27 reviews

3.

February 14, 2011
Critic Score
89
44 reviews
Authoritatively potent, bitterly bleak and beautiful, this record is an unexpected but essential punch in the face.

2.

July 26, 2011
Critic Score
81
33 reviews

Gone is the ‘Primary Colours’ influences of Portishead’s Geoff Barrow, or the punchy impatience of ‘Strange House’, and in that place stands an intellectually collective five-piece, fully immersed in the confidence of their own astonishing abilities.

1.

October 4, 2011
Critic Score
68
11 reviews
Original Source: http://www.clashmusic.com/feature/the-top-40-albums-of-2011
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