- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Smith has crafted an album that is deft, addictive and profoundly musical, and it feels like a fresh-minted classic.
-
Awfully Deep makes for churning, menacing background music.
-
The music is often awesomely original.
-
Overall, Roots Manuva may have a lot to say during the verses, but when his choruses consist of little more than a repeated line shouted over and over ("Awfully Deep," "Too Cold"), listeners won't be hanging around long enough to decipher his rhymes.
-
His best [album] yet, his most fully-formed, emotionally engaging and sonically rewarding.
-
Smith’s tracks are both banging and self-effacing, yet the two opposite impulses never seem fully at odds with each other.
-
New Musical Express (NME)A set of immense maturity that never rubs your nose in its thematic complexity, compositional innovation and thunderous thump-beats. [29 Jan 2005, p.58]
-
It’s Manuva’s startling honesty which first impresses.
-
It’s a lot of slickness that adds up to little, though, as a culturally myopic Roots Manuva audibly struggles to feel out the changed face of hip-hop; he sounds unsure of what tone to take and what words to say.
-
A stealthy, smoking beast of a thing: hip hop with a British passport and dubplate roots, embroidered with wiggly, scratching sound effects and made-to-measure production.
-
MojoSmith's best, most satisfying album to date. [Mar 2005, p.106]
-
UncutTHe good stuff is terrific. [Mar 2005, p.104]
-
Q MagazineSmith's greatest talent lies in his surreal, witty wordplay and avuncular tone, and the way they combine to make what could be the usual rap anger sound both intimate and strangely uplifting. [Feb 2005, p.95]
-
BlenderIt's protest music gone gleefully psycho. [Jul 2005, p.122]
-
Awfully Deep, on the whole, is a bold, ambitious swing for the fences. But, like it or not, the game's done changed, and Manuva '05 sounds way too much like Manuva '01.
-
Awfully Deep is another strong release for Smith, and while it doesn’t sport the effortless flow of his debut or the rich variety of Run Come Save Me, its considered assessment of where he’s been and where he might be heading helps the album more than live up to its title.
-
Entertainment WeeklyA thrilling mix of moody ambivalence and soulful reggae-tinged hip-hop. [27 May 2005, p.1341]
-
SpinHis third album mostly shelves the wit and sui generis style-clash. [Jun 2005, p.108]
-
Not a brilliant album, not his best (that remains Run Come Save Me), just a damn fine selection of mood-groove-dub-flavours by one of music's true inimicables.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 16 out of 18
-
Mixed: 1 out of 18
-
Negative: 1 out of 18
-
JimmyJan 12, 2006Pure Goodness
-
ChickenSupremeApr 14, 2005One of the albums of the year for sure as Mr Smith once again matches dub up with electro squelches to create a very personal and touching album.
-
AndrewOMar 30, 2005At times....dark, bright, sad, happy, serious, playfull...but entirely honest. Almost a "Brand New Second Hand."