Buy Now
| Buy on |
|
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Nov 4, 2014There’s a newfound purpose to his dilettantism, one that invests the album with more weight than anyone had any right to expect.
-
Nov 3, 2014Black Metal is an exceptional record. It is a stronger, more complete statement even than that seen on The Redeemer, primarily because it lays bare its own contradictions.
-
Nov 3, 2014Sure, the LP has its eccentric moments, and it takes a long time to really get to know. But, as The Redeemer hinted and Black Metal proves, beneath all the YouTube sampling, bizarre press and one-off Russian blog releases, Blunt is a talented singer-songwriter with a keen ear for odd sounds.
-
Nov 3, 2014Complex, original and even sincere, it’s a brilliant new departure.
-
The WireDec 15, 2014The result is, even more than Blunt's previous work, an enigmatic emotional tenor. [Nov 2014, p.62]
-
MojoNov 19, 2014His overall grasp of what he is doing has never been surer. [Dec 2014, p.93]
-
Q MagazineNov 13, 2014The album's dark Heart, though, is Forever, a mesmerising 13-minute-epic.... He's developing into one of UK electronica's most distinctive voices. [Dec 2014, p.107]
-
UncutNov 11, 2014Whenever his scorched Bill Callahan drawl appears, the effect is at once jarring and intoxicating. [Dec 2014, p.72]
-
Nov 10, 2014Ratcheting up the glimpses of honesty found on The Redeemer, it is his most transparent collection to date.
-
Nov 6, 2014Its second half is abrasive to the extreme, but by this point the hypnotic album’s already worked its charm. If Blunt is ever to settle into a routine, this should be his blueprint.
-
Nov 5, 2014From ‘cover art’ to core, it might seem the listener is last on his list, but this is just classic reverse psychology. The less Dean Blunt cares, the more we do.
-
Nov 4, 2014On Black Metal, Blunt's style is still very difficult to classify, yet a hint more inviting and amicable than his last.
-
Nov 4, 2014Black Metal is Blunt’s most realized work yet, but it’s still shrouded in mystery. There’s no reason for that to change, and there’s not even a hint here that Blunt is anywhere near ready to fold.
-
Nov 3, 2014It is fractured, offbeat, at times grating, yet contains some of the most achingly beautiful music recorded this year.
-
Nov 17, 2014Black Metal offers few definitive answers, but this time around the hazy images he's projecting have come into sharper focus.
-
Nov 7, 2014Blunt’s Black Metal is essentially enjoyable when taken at face value, but tends to fall apart under closer scrutiny.
-
Nov 3, 2014It’s so opaque that it feels as if there’s no way in, as if it’s enveloped in a fug of weed smoke so dense as to obscure what lies at the centre. Concepts of good or bad don’t really apply here: Black Metal simply is.
-
Nov 3, 2014A large portion of Black Metal resembles the kind of lo-fi, quantity-over-quality, solitary works of eccentrics who would have been at home in the mid- to late '80s on labels like Factory Benelux, Creation, or, well, Rough Trade.
-
Nov 3, 2014What is surely one of the year’s most frustrating releases.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 14 out of 16
-
Mixed: 1 out of 16
-
Negative: 1 out of 16
-
Feb 4, 2015This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.
-
Jun 22, 2023The best pop album of all time. Every song is beautiful, soulful, or energetic, and never fail to entertain.
-
Oct 12, 2021