Aerial - Kate Bush
Metascore
81 out of 100

Universal acclaim - based on 23 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 21 out of 23
  2. Negative: 0 out of 23
  1. 'Aerial' towers over the vast majority of even this year's embarrassment of riches.
  2. 100
    Kate Bush is the greatest living British artist in song and this is her masterpiece. [Dec 2005, p.96]
  3. It is filled with things only Kate Bush would do.
  4. Considering the length of her hiatus, this is a remarkable surprise.
  5. Aerial isn't perfect, but it is magnificent.
  6. You could lose yourself for days here. [Dec 2005, p.142]
  7. Over two CDs the music expands towards novel-like richness.
  8. Like all ambitious double albums, [Aerial] is not without its flaws, but even Bush's moments of failure are much more interesting than those of her contemporaries.
  9. There's no pushing of the envelope because there doesn't need to be. Aerial is rooted in Kate Bush's oeuvre, with grace, flair, elegance, and an obsessive, stubborn attention to detail.
  10. Despite her prolonged absence, Bush sounds as vital as ever.
  11. It's a stirring return to that special place behind the eyes of Kate Bush, where every raindrop contains universes within universes.
  12. The songs don't always match the brouhaha surrounding their arrival, but there's no denying the exquisite craft on display.
  13. 'Aerial' has more than its share of static, but the highs are more than worth the lows. [12 Nov 2005, p.45]
  14. A more satisfying album intellectually than it is musically.
  15. At times Aerial feels like such a grandiloquent monument to sweetness and motherhood and baroque English chamber pop that it gets a bit queasy. [#12, p.94]
  16. 70
    She balances her freakiness by matching her sublime chirp with grounded glories. [Jan/Feb 2006, p.93]
  17. It's great to have her back. [Feb/Mar 2006, p.100]
  18. Even without the quirky, theatrical pop she offered in the 1980s, she has held up beautifully after her long hiatus from recording, creating a record that is very much her own.
  19. Even if Aerial doesn't set the world on fire, it's good to hear Kate Bush again, and to hear a record that sounds so organic and grounded.
  20. This is Kate Bush's domestic album. Listen to it stoned on a Sunday afternoon.
  21. Far be it from me to criticize happy endings, but in musical terms, a comfortable, even-keeled existence sometimes comes out as isolated and ordinary art.
  22. 60
    A madly ambitious, darkly despondent and goofily exuberant grand folly of a record. [Album of the Month, Dec 2005, p.98]
  23. Too much of Aerial fades into a soft-focus background of soothing synthesizers, murmuring bass, and twittering birdsong.
User Score

Universal acclaim- based on 264 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Negative: 10 out of 191
  1. TakisS
    10
    A real experimental masterpiece! Only Kate can make songs like Aerial Prologue or Prelude in that Age. The album is the successor of Hounds of Love! A masterpiece! Full Review »
  2. AnyaZ.
    10
    Buying this album was best spending of money ever!!! Aerial is amazing album, great work of art and music. One of Bush's best.
  3. barbrad
    10
    Forget the therapist - listen to this. Stunning