Gemma Samways
This mix of innovation and tradition – which includes a stunning cover of The Beatles’ Blackbird – takes country music and Americana and creates something exciting and fresh.
2y
Throughout, the arrangements are as relentlessly upbeat and playfully retro as the album’s Alan Fears-designed artwork, stuffed with vocoders, peacocking basslines and laser-beam synth sounds. They’re also wildly referential, and largely fail to add anything either fresh or memorable to the conversation.
3y
While there’s a sense that Webster’s not taking the songwriting risks she once was, this transcendent set suggests sincerity suits her.
4y
She’s right to feel quietly confident: on the strength of this second collection, she’s a real one-off.
5y
On debut album New Long Leg, the south London quartet further exploit that tension by broadening their palette, experimenting with an array of guitar textures, as well as thrillingly tinny drum machines and pointillist basslines, placed prominently in the mix.
5y
Once again, Lenker proves that gazing into the abyss can be gainful employment.
3y
Offering an exhaustive catalogue of romantic disappointments and dramatic feelings, ‘Compliments Please’ is about as subtle as it sounds. But then that’s precisely the point.
7y
By filtering her innate melodic nous through the prism of club music, Robyn pushes the dance-pop hybrid into exciting new territory.
7y
Bloom delivers glorious pop that is as intelligently constructed as it is unabashedly emotional.
5y
Tighter than its predecessor and boasting Blood Orange’s purest pop moments yet in Saint and Nappy Wonder, Negro Swan might yet convey Hynes’ message to the mainstream.
3y
As a listener, you come away from the record with a strong grasp of her politics around race, gender and societal inequality ... but little sense of any emotional vulnerability. Still, as complex, agenda-pushing pop goes, ‘Dirty Computer’ is undeniably impressive.
8y
With it’s broadly uplifting melodies, and quizzical lyrics, ‘American Utopia’ offers listeners a little escapism rather than biting satire or concrete solutions.
8y
‘Communicating’ is far stronger when its creators play to their strengths, rather than focus their energies on widening their audience, and Nicole Miglis’ emotionally bruised half-whispers are infinitely more suited to intimate arrangements.
8y
By basing any adjustments on empirical evidence, the band have imbued this second album with a sense of vindication that ‘Silence Yourself’ lacked.
10y
Alongside the aforementioned bumbled release strategy, it’s another unwelcome interference on an album that deserves to be ranked amongst 2015’s best.
11y
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