Hopelessness
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Secretly Canadian / Label
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CRITIC REVIEWS
100
As profound a protest record as anyone has made in decades, brimming with anger, and yet, somehow, oddly accessible.
100
An extremely compelling, beautifully articulated, bonafide masterpiece.
91
For so long, ANOHNI had felt like a supernatural force, of this world but able to see a thread of love and hope through all the sadness. By expressing the grimmest realities, that thread becomes harder and harder to find. But ANOHNI’s music makes that struggle all the more powerful.
90
Aside from some staggeringly strong songwriting, the genius of the collaboration is the juxtaposition between these synthetic textures and the soulful, innately-empathetic timbre of Anohni’s voice.
90
It’s both a thrilling record and an occasionally confounding one; a statement that often invokes tightly controlled rage as a means of slapping the listener out of what one imagines has become our collective stupor. In short, it’s a protest record.
90
HOPELESSNESS is her own call to action, art as manifesto, a reminder that there is nothing hopeless in creation.
90
HOPELESSNESS represents a new level of collaboration. The subject matter is daunting, but this is some of the most accessible and pristinely infectious music that any of these people have made. With that, HOPELESSNESS simultaneously broadens Anohni's appeal and brings that appeal into focus.
90
Hopelessness essentially represents the fight to find your own unique place in a world that has grown ugly, and a sincere desire for us all to wake up and take action to ensure it doesn’t get any uglier than it already is.
90
The production – as you’d expect – is consistently outstanding ... but it is the don’t-look-away lyricism that cuts provocatively through, adding up to an astonishing album that sounds fresh, intense and utterly compelling.
83
Even if I miss the personal struggles of I Am a Bird Now and The Crying Light, Anohni and her collaborators have created a dazzling musical artifact.
83
Compared with the morose, string-laden music Anohni is known for, this is an Ariana Grande album, but it remains experimental and emotional enough to feel natural. Anohni is broadening her audience—not courting a broad audience.
80
While her work with Antony has mostly embraced a spiritual softness, her newfound defiance with her new moniker Anohni is just as vulnerable, except that she’s now communicating those bare emotions with a cold and uncompromising eye. What hasn’t changed, however, is that voice, a powerful vibratto that can tug into one’s deepest emotions with the most sensible and unpresuming touch.
80
The performances in these songs are as dramatic as they are musical: disarmingly direct, phenomenally compelling.
80
Making relevant, accessible, uncringey protest music in this day and age is such a difficult task that most artists have decided not to bother. Anohni has been brave enough to take that risk, and the most vital album of recent times is the reward.
80
Combined with Anohni's trembling and vulnerable vibrato, its grandiose sounds crescendo into a sprawling political epic that could inspire spontaneous bursts of interpretive dance.
80
Hopelessness is a response to the raging debate around diversity; it’s a shot across the bow to steadfast conservatives and ambivalent progressives alike. Anohni doesn’t just seek visibility – she demands it.
80
For an album containing a multitude of familiar conventions, Hopelessness somehow remains a fresh and unique experience.
80
It may have been easy, in the past, to sideline or typecast the music of Antony Hegarty: this is niche music, outsider songs for safe spaces. But Hopelessness is bigger and bolder than that – an accessible album tabling the big questions, the sort that few artists and fewer politicians dare to tackle.
70
It’s a strange album that is melodically approachable, but lyrically draining. By the time you get to the eponymous title track, the unending nihilism within has done its work.
70
What can at times sound facile in its un-coded repugnance deepens, on repeated listens, into both sophisticated political statement and haunting music.
60
This music leaves no doubt that Anohni remains a strikingly talented vocalist and songwriter, but where the warm heart of 2006's I Am a Bird Now reached out to the listener, Hopelessness instead throws up a wall as it launches an assault on an unjust world. Anohni's targets deserve all the fury she unleashes upon them, but that doesn't make this any easier to engage with, even if you agree with what Anohni has to say.
60
ANOHNI isn’t subtle in how she deals with evil, but she does bring a skill to her first work.
58
These details are aggravating because, behind them, you can sometimes glimpse the brilliant album Hopelessness might have been.
55
Some tracks come across like impromptu recording sessions where ANOHNI worked through recently-penned material over production pieces messed around with just before she'd arrived at the studio. Still, there is enough in this unexpected assimilation of talents to hold intrigue.
40
This is pop music, made to seem intelligent without the substance to assert its claims.
oh what the fuck i just relistened to this thing and it fucking clicked on me i'm crying
Hopelessness is one of my favourite album of 2016. Electropop sounds good, simple and catchy, it's exactly what the theme needs because it is less accessible. Contestation in Hopelessness is recurent but Anohni puts personal aspect, feels guilty (Watch me, Crisis, Hopelessness). It's absolutely astonishing, I mean it's not a simple contest album but a true therapy for Anohni.
After Hopelessness, Anohni is seeing some form of Hope with a strong battle against the poison-side of her country (I ... read more
After Hopelessness, Anohni is seeing some form of Hope with a strong battle against the poison-side of her country (I ... read more
ANOHNI has been a revelatory figure in the music industry long before the release of her polarizing solo debut ‘Hopelessness’. ‘I Am a Bird Now’ second album from her band Antony and the Johnsons reflected on the emotional brevity of gender dysphoria years before societal discussions surrounding transgender rights became commonplace. When the moment presents itself, ANOHNI has never been afraid to speak or out on the world’s injustices or act in protest of them; ... read more
Pretty good album with a few catchy songs. The overt political themes get annoying after a while though especially on songs like Obama and Crisis. It's kind of like if an over obsessed Bernie supporter wrote an album. Would still recommend giving it a listen as it does have it's bright spots.
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Track List
- Drone Bomb Me
- 4 Degrees
- Watch Me
- Execution
- I Don't Love You Anymore
- Obama
- Violent Men
- Why Did You Separate Me from the Earth?
- Crisis
- Hopelessness
- Marrow
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Added on: March 11, 2016