Buy Now
- Critic score
- Publication
- By date
-
Jan 22, 2021Not everything on Isles is a win—"Rever" and "Fir" dial the neon palette up a notch too high—but overall the album nails the tricky balance artists face when following a successful debut: similar enough to charm the old fans yet fresh enough to entice the new.
-
Jan 21, 2021Isles invites you to close your eyes and let your alpha waves throw their own shapes.
-
Jan 21, 2021As they prove across ‘Isles’’ 10 intricately-crafted tracks (which were whittled down from more than 150 demos), few other artists can conjure up these much-missed moments of patiently rapturous rave ecstasy quite so artfully.
-
Jan 21, 2021Bicep pull it off with considerable aplomb. Isles’s melodies are lush or wistfully melancholic, but the beats are too tough and driving for its contents to be mistaken for something you’d play at a dinner party.
-
Jan 21, 2021Never overstaying its welcome, and always intriguingly structured, the lights might have come up, but the Belfast duo want to remind us that the memories and communities aren’t going anywhere.
-
Jan 20, 2021The layered and intricate soundscapes that embody Isles are testament to the vast and diverse musical influences that Ferguson and McBriar have explored and savoured over the years. Bittersweet and introspective, yet hopeful and spellbinding.
-
MojoJan 19, 2021This is music for smarter dancefloors. [Mar 2021, p.89]
-
Jan 19, 2021It’s a brilliant pick me up, a dazzling set of songs that tap into our innermost impulses. A colourful way to remember those good times, and one that is perfectly prepared for our eventual return to the dance floor.
-
Jan 19, 2021The album's theme of discovery and belonging is clear and poignant throughout and adds an extra dimension to critical listening of many of the tracks. The album does tire a little towards the end, and similar ideas and developments are revisited a little too quickly. Still, overall, Bicep have crafted a very exciting record worthy of high praise.
-
Jan 26, 2021Isles is a headphones record as colourful as its artwork, and should be enjoyed to the fullest on its own terms, the work of an act in constant flux who refuse to rest on their laurels.
-
The WireApr 5, 2021Isles offers multiple reboots of the “Glue” formula: chunky broken beats, keening voices in many languages, and duvet-warm basslines, as on lead singles “Atlas” and “Apricots”; the latter is based around a clip of the much sampled Bulgarian State Television choir. Guest vocalist Clara La San adds a femme-pop twist to “Saku” and a tight electro jam called “X” which is the best of the bunch. [Mar 2021, p.61]
-
Jan 21, 2021Apart from the foggy, piano-driven beatless interlude "Lido," the tracks pretty much remain in Bicep's familiar club-tooled mode, and while it can seem a bit formulaic over the course of an album, their consistency largely works to their benefit, and Isles sports several undeniable highlights.
-
UncutJan 19, 2021This handsome sequel stays mostly within their comfort zone of melodic, propulsive dance-pop tailored both to clubs and home listening, an impressive balancing act even if the formula sometimes feels over-polished. [Feb 2021, p.25]
-
Jan 19, 2021The formula certainly has its merits though, and Bicep bring them to the fore better than most on Isles, and all with an appealingly late-night, cosmopolitan flair, where ghostly fragments of Hindi, Turkish pop or Bulgarian choirs are just as likely to hover among the neon synths as the usual breathy trance sirens. It gives the album a bustling, urban energy that very much works in its favour, even if its style might slightly outweigh its substance sometimes.
-
Jan 22, 2021Isles has sparkling moments but it’s all a bit constrained, like a potted plant on a window sill that craves the natural wildness of a garden.
User score distribution:
-
Positive: 15 out of 17
-
Mixed: 2 out of 17
-
Negative: 0 out of 17
-
Sep 23, 2021Bicep - Isles - 6.56
I found this to be incredibly one-note. My favorite tracks were Saku and Light. -
Jan 24, 2021