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Zero 7
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
Comicopera
Universal acclaim
Based on 20 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 11 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album >
Album Info
Label: Domino
Release Date: 09 October 2007
Discs: 1 disc
Genre(s): Rock, Experimental
Summary
The English singer's latest includes Brian Eno, Paul Weller, and Phil Manzanera as guests.
Also On The Web: Robert Wyatt @ Domino
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Magnet
The fact that Comicopera is a masterpiece proves it all right nicely. [Fall 2007, p.113]
The Wire
A superb album, in which Wyatt gathers all of his strengths, with the personal and the political, the aesthetic and the ethical are brought together as only he can. [Nov 2007, p.64]
BBC collective
The songs on Comicopera rate amongst his very best--emotionally complex, politically charged but never short of beautiful.
Read Full Review >musicOMH.com
This is an incredibly well fused and structured album that taps into a wide range of emotions.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times
It's a portrait of an English radical at 62, but it's personal and emotional and neither strident nor stodgy.
Read Full Review >The Phoenix
The sweetest instrument, however, is Wyatt’s voice, whose fragile, high, quavering tone is honest to the core.
Read Full Review >Prefix Magazine
However, like so many singular artists, Wyatt's presence spans the record and ultimately gives it its necessary gel. His multi-octave voice booms, croons, and cracks across the album with stunning clarity and consistency.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club)
Really, all of Comicopera rolls deliriously over pillowy layers of sound
Read Full Review >Uncut
Each song works brilliantly in isolation, making this a treasure trove of Wyatt’s finest work ever.
Read Full Review >Mojo
It's hard to imagine a record more original or full of life, from any artist of any age, emerging this year. It's that damn good. [Nov 2007, p.91]
Under The Radar
It makes perfect sense as a Robert Wyatt album, and few in his catalog are so perfectly paced and comprehensively designed. [Fall 2007, p.77]
Q Magazine
Comicopera is a cornicopia. [Nov 2007, p.148]
The New York Times
Comicopera, his 12th solo record since 1970, has indulgences and longueurs, as all his records do. But it also has some burstingly beautiful songwriting.
Read Full Review >All Music Guide
More immediately accessible and warm than "Cuckooland," more ambitious than "Shleep," Comicopera, in three acts, is the end result of Robert Wyatt looking around and examining the craziness and wild unpredictability in real life in 2007.
Read Full Review >Drowned In Sound
There are few who could delve into such weighty issues without succumbing to empty rhetoric, but it's testament to Wyatt's unpretentious approach that he pulls off the trick while retaining a lightness of touch that makes Comicopera such a consistent pleasure to listen to.
Read Full Review >Observer Music Monthly
The quality veers wildly, but every so often he hits upon a great song. 'Just As You Are' in particular sets the smoothest of melodies and a haunting cornet solo from Wyatt against the most world-weary of lyrics.
Read Full Review >Spin
The CD is like spending a cloudy afternoon on Jupiter with the old man, his quizzical sonic tricks at arms reach, his singing as ageless and haunting as the ammonia rain. [Dec 2007, p.128]
Almost Cool
It's definitely ambitious, and probably a little pretentious in places, but it works darn near all the time and is a downright joy in many places.
Read Full Review >Pitchfork
Delineated acts aside, the disc maintains a certain sonic consistency, carefully balancing discord with grace; the structure does pay off, however--particularly the first two-thirds.
Read Full Review >The Guardian
If the album has a rough-around-the-edges, askew quality, that just makes it more fascinating: this isn't music that settles in the background.
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this album is 8.4 (out of 10) based on 11 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Rael T. gave it a9:
definitely Wyatt's best since Rock Bottom, amazingly fresh, would never guess this comes from a huge, historical guru of rock music... Fiery Furnaces and the likes should listen and learn from this masterpiece
John V. gave it a10:
the most disturbing, beautiful, awesome, breathtaking album of 2007!
J. K. gave it a9:
Perhaps Wyatt's best work since Rock Bottom, Comicopera is a fun and interesting look into his disillusionment with current western foreign policy. Act 1 is probably the most personal and evocative of the three. Act 2 is more poppy, jazzy and has a delightful jilt to it. Act 3 combines the two motifs somewhat and dances into more experimental territory with Fragment and the amusing ode to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, "Pastafari." The album is a more focused and targeted work than Wyatt's other more recent works and the sound moves saliently from start to finish, without wilting or overusing its themes. My only real gripe is "Out of the Blue" feels maybe a little too out of the blue.
