græ finds him trying to be, well, everything, and through a convergence of folk, jazz, classical, and art-rock, along with his probing lyricism, Sumney has managed to produce a sonic marvel
Grӕ is so rich in content and so vast in musicality it would be impossible to unpack everything in a single review. It is complex yet universal – comforting yet unsettling. It lives in an incorporeal realm of its own, and somehow, Sumney has gained complete and utter command over it.
Perhaps the only thing more exciting than græ will be seeing where Moses Sumney goes from here.
Scored by Sumney’s most vibrant array of instrumentals to date, the San Bernardino musician’s second set sees him push outward, swapping Aromanticism’s insular fragments for a set of more exposed, yet transient brushstrokes.
Græ is, in summary, a quite astonishing achievement. You won’t hear anything else like it this year. You won’t hear a more extravagantly astonishing voice this century.
He’s created, with grae, an album that demands you to look at it, and him, in totality. It is shapeless yet massive, a sprawling interrogation of who created the margins of normalcy, and whether one can reclaim their agency back from systems that have existed longer than they have.
On Sumney’s arresting and remarkable new double-album græ, he now challenges the idea of us as standardised, binary beings.
Though Sumney’s fears of solitude still define much of the album, his embrace of the spaces between binaries opens up new possibilities for self-definition and actualization, and the album suggests that the artist might be rising out of the shadows he explores so tenderly.
Describing its music as ambitious is akin to labeling a stab wound a scrape. If Sumney’s fiery, spiritual 2018 EP Black in Deep Red, 2014 upended fans’ expectations, then Grae is a revelatory shock. Sumney’s music resonates most strongly when—like its lyrics—it destroys pre-established boundaries.
The musical signals Moses Sumney’s twenty-track epic græ sends out are also vital. He brings shards of art rock, R&B, classical, electronic, jazz, and soul into one beautiful piece of musical kintsugi performed with the precision of a master potter.
With ‘græ’, Sumney calls for a world that doesn’t expect easy answers and doesn’t judge or restrict individuals. This is a brave, vulnerable and ambitious work that asks us to recognise and celebrate our own grey areas. It’s an album full of possibility and startling scope, and which, ultimately, finds peace among the pain.
Græ is a textural wonder, with soft electric guitars, Sumney’s beautiful voice, and glittering synths making up most of the album’s heavenly sounding songs.
The complete 20-song incarnation of Moses Sumney's follow-up to 2017's Aromanticism comes awfully close to the masterwork he so clearly gunning to make.
Split into two parts, the intent is for us to explore the “grey” in-between songs, spaces and words. It’s the kind of artistic abstraction that’s easily dismissed, but with Sumney’s energy sparking throughout this meandering collection of tracks, it’s hard not to be a little suckered in.
While none of the material is necessarily skip-worthy, græ feels a bit like a so-so album topped off with an excellent EP.
#2 | / | Under the Radar |
#3 | / | FLOOD |
#3 | / | Pitchfork |
#3 | / | The New York Times: Jon Pareles |
#5 | / | Esquire (UK) |
#5 | / | The Independent |
#5 | / | The Line of Best Fit |
#6 | / | BrooklynVegan |
#6 | / | Our Culture |
#6 | / | The Forty-Five |