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May 14, 2020Equal parts elegant and antagonistic, it comes together to be every part the listening experience that he wanted it to be - complex, unconventional and ultimately, essential.
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May 14, 2020græ finds him trying to be, well, everything, and through a convergence of folk, jazz, classical, and art-rock, along with his probing lyricism, Sumney has managed to produce a sonic marvel.
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May 14, 2020Grӕ is so rich in content and so vast in musicality it would be impossible to unpack everything in a single review. It is complex yet universal – comforting yet unsettling. It lives in an incorporeal realm of its own, and somehow, Sumney has gained complete and utter command over it.
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May 19, 2020Shifting from pounding rock to experimental jazz at a feather’s touch, the album’s sonics provide the theatrical soundscape to Sumney’s words, rising and falling in line with his crystalline tones.
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May 19, 2020Moses Sumney and Mike Hadreas have made the albums of our strange quarantine season — bleak but tender, sprawling yet intricately detailed, as suffused with the need for physical contact as they are alert to its dangers and prohibitions. ... Stunning art-soul record. ... Yet as busy as the music can occasionally feel, both albums keep close track of the singers’ voices, which always merit the attention.
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May 18, 2020A few skippable songs don’t change the scale of Sumney’s accomplishment. With an auspicious debut in his rearview mirror and a blinding future ahead, he made an album that crystalizes the current state of his art and advances his worldview while at the same time clearing a path for whatever he wants to do next. Perhaps the only thing more exciting than græ will be seeing where Moses Sumney goes from here.
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May 15, 2020“Græ” is a magnificent, multi-genre mess in a dress of many colors — the greyness of its monochrome title notwithstanding — and not just possibly 2020’s literally biggest album, across its double-album sprawl, but also one of the year’s boldest and best.
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May 15, 2020Where Aromanticism was intimate and sleek, græ is rangy, sprawling, a riot of moods from lustful to angry to broken-hearted. ... The most powerful moments on græ examine the distance between this wariness and the loneliness it produces.
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Aug 10, 2020For all of the purposefully oblique subject matter, the album never once feels indirect or opaque. ... His voice is multiply expressive, both in the way that a singer/songwriter’s voice in its lyrical accent would be, and in the way that someone like Daniel Lopatin’s production would expectedly turn a voice into beautiful putty.
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May 14, 2020The intensity and diversity of Part 1 hinted at even more bombastic and unexpected songs to come on Part 2, which instead mostly continues the sound he already mastered on Aromanticism. It’s not that Part 2’s songs aren’t gorgeous and poignant; it’s just that, given Sumney’s unwavering focus on shattering longtime boundaries, Part 2’s songs occupy shockingly familiar musical territory.
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The WireJul 14, 2020He knows that being the most complete version of himself requires lifelong searching – græ never fails to feel like such a journey. [Aug 2020, p.63]
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Jun 1, 2020Græ is a textural wonder, with soft electric guitars, Sumney’s beautiful voice, and glittering synths making up most of the album’s heavenly sounding songs.
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May 18, 2020It’s hard to imagine many of its songs being performed onstage, even before the pandemic — even as it encompasses more sonic possibilities, from the orchestral to the surreal. ... Sumney doesn’t have to explain himself in prose. His songs do it even better.
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May 18, 2020An emotionally ambitious 20-track built on pain, vulnerability and self-identity.
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May 14, 2020When the album shifts into its second part, and turns inwards with a slower pace to match its vulnerable introspection, there’s no jolt: Sumney’s voice ensures that his soundscapes melt together. It’s here that the emotional heft is to be found.
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UncutMay 14, 2020Comes awfully close to the masterwork he so clearly gunning to make. [Jun 2020, p.38]
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May 14, 2020This is a brave, vulnerable and ambitious work that asks us to recognise and celebrate our own grey areas. It’s an album full of possibility and startling scope, and which, ultimately, finds peace among the pain.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 69 out of 76
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Mixed: 5 out of 76
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Negative: 2 out of 76
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May 15, 2020A completely phenomenal piece of art that demands multiple listens, and close reading of its lyrics to fully understand.
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May 16, 2020"I gave my life
To something
Something bigger
Than me..."
...plus luxury sound. -
Jul 26, 2020