• Record Label: 4AD
  • Release Date: Feb 21, 2012
Metascore
80

Generally favorable reviews - based on 42 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 38 out of 42
  2. Negative: 0 out of 42
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  1. 80
    Thirteen tracks of exceptional music and a clear-cut success for Boucher.
  2. Mar 26, 2012
    80
    Visions is beautifully conceived and executed, musically, lyrically and thematically.
  3. Mojo
    Mar 23, 2012
    80
    It take a rare confidence and skill to throw a million (roughly) ideas into an album and make it sound not just coherent but as good as this one. [Apr 2012, p.91]
  4. Q Magazine
    Mar 14, 2012
    80
    You'll have to search long and hard for a more original and distinctive album this year. [April 2012, p.100]
  5. Uncut
    Mar 14, 2012
    70
    Over the course of an album even dogs will find the whistle register wearing, but taken individually these are sublime cocktails of post-geographical orientalism. [Apr 2012, p.79]
  6. Mar 12, 2012
    80
    An album of shifting, shimmering textures that is both a spaced out exploration and the perfect pop album.
  7. 70
    The meringue-light and snow-bright Visions is a sort of cut-up, laptronica take on the kind of sugary, girly electro-pop confections Prince produced for a succession of female starlets in the late 1980s.
  8. Mar 9, 2012
    70
    Above all and aside from the frustrations, the album is a well-crafted beast, beautifully constructed.
  9. Mar 8, 2012
    80
    A smart, funny album, and it's almost impossible not to dance to it.
  10. Mar 7, 2012
    80
    'Visions' is a cornucopia of Claire Boucher's most vivid waking dreams. Gripping, then, but also as intangible as the prevailing dread of a forgotten nightmare.
  11. Mar 7, 2012
    80
    Some may find 'Visions' consistently eschews the same ground of super slick, layered vocals over chrome digital structures but this reductive palette of sonics hears the album fly towards its peak of 'Nightmusic' - a collaboration with Majical Cloudz that is camouflaged electro pop that'll keep you muttering for months.
  12. Mar 5, 2012
    80
    The Montreal-based artist has again delivered some fascinating and healthily progressive music on Visions, her third album.
  13. Feb 27, 2012
    90
    An album that sits comfortably in the 4AD canon of excellence.
  14. Feb 27, 2012
    70
    When it works, it makes for gloriously contradictory pop--it's just a shame that the formula isn't a little more consistent.
  15. Entertainment Weekly
    Feb 24, 2012
    83
    Dreamy, glitchy art pop. [2 Mar 2012, p.73]
  16. Feb 24, 2012
    90
    Methinks come the end of the year, a lot of people will have adjudged it a keeper.
  17. Feb 24, 2012
    80
    Visions is a more focused album than the spaced-out Halfaxa or the disparate Geidi Primes but one of the key charms of Grimes' sound is its unforcedness.
  18. Feb 23, 2012
    70
    Grimes has come into a cleaner, more distinct version of her IDM self, albeit one still influenced by Aphex Twin, TLC and Enya.
  19. Feb 23, 2012
    80
    There's no doubt that Grimes has drawn from a sea of influence to craft her dark, structured, idiosyncratic sound, but those influences have all passed through a filter so thorough, have been pulled so far from context, that the most striking thing left is Claire Boucher's point of view.
  20. Feb 21, 2012
    80
    The fact that it's both artistically bugged out and immediately rewarding is just the icing on the cake.
  21. Feb 21, 2012
    70
    It's an album of mixed signals, and while Grimes sounds like she's still sorting out what it all means, her uncertainty is worth sharing.
  22. Feb 21, 2012
    78
    Where I was expecting a great album, I've instead encountered one that's merely very good.
  23. Feb 21, 2012
    80
    Fresh and surprisingly accessible despite its quirks, Visions is bewitching.
  24. Feb 21, 2012
    82
    Visions refuses to rest on its laurels.
  25. Feb 21, 2012
    70
    Though it's well produced and confident, and goes deep into its web of influence, it seems so rooted in this moment that it feels transitory.
  26. Feb 21, 2012
    91
    On her 4AD debut, Visions, she continues her march toward accessibility, rendering hazy, quixotic sketches into tangible, hook-heavy electro-pop.
  27. Feb 21, 2012
    70
    The pervasive sense on Visions is of a young woman carefully pushing out of her own introversion, which makes the moments where she sings from the gut instead of the throat ("Circumambient"), or strives for human-on-human sensuality ("Skin"), all the more thrilling.
  28. Feb 21, 2012
    80
    Easily Ms. Boucher's best work and one of the most impressive albums of the year so far.
  29. Feb 21, 2012
    80
    Visions is an absolute blast. Easy to admire, easy to love.
  30. Feb 17, 2012
    85
    Compulsively listenable.
  31. Feb 17, 2012
    80
    Visions is marked by a number of characteristics that make up a broad swathe of forgettable, barely-there music-it sounds distant, cheaply produced, with songs that seem to flutter in and out of earshot rather than command attention-but it's executed with such personality, earnestness, and feeling that it feels so much louder and present than it really is.
  32. Feb 17, 2012
    70
    Visions is a remarkable outing for Boucher in that it manages to showcase her knack for spinning bits and pieces from all points on the musical spectrum into crafty, easily digestible pop.
  33. Feb 17, 2012
    90
    There's no doubt that Visions is an excellent album.
  34. Feb 17, 2012
    80
    Consistently unique and fascinating.
  35. Feb 17, 2012
    70
    Visions is a flawed but intimate glimpse into the fantasies of its creator, and while it might not act as a springboard to greater fame for Grimes, it's just as satisfying to hear her take her bedroom music into a darkened basement, away from the prying world.
  36. Feb 16, 2012
    80
    While Visions is unmistakably 2012 sonically in its references to R&B and hip-hop, it also fits remarkably gracefully into 4AD's impressive back catalogue of dream pop.
  37. Feb 8, 2012
    86
    Visions is exactly what it sounds like: it's an aesthetic and conceptual vision, one utterly unique to Boucher, and it's both strange and satisfying.
  38. Feb 1, 2012
    90
    Visions often feels suspended in the best way possible, both in time and space.
User Score
8.8

Universal acclaim- based on 394 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Negative: 21 out of 394
  1. May 5, 2012
    10
    Claire's ethereal dream pop music style is setted up in this record, and maximized. Not much alike her last two, this is a pavement to aClaire's ethereal dream pop music style is setted up in this record, and maximized. Not much alike her last two, this is a pavement to a success, and the songs seems to be attached. 'Genesis' and 'Oblivion' sounds like featured stories. 'Circumambient', 'Symphonia IX (My Wait Is U)' and 'Visiting Statue' are the best recordings in this album. It is the year's best until now. Full Review »
  2. Apr 26, 2012
    6
    Despite the fact that the style which Grimes operates on the album "Vision" is not everyone-fall-in-love, I must admit that this is a prettyDespite the fact that the style which Grimes operates on the album "Vision" is not everyone-fall-in-love, I must admit that this is a pretty good record. Songs teeter on the borderline of for ex.dream pop - "Infinite Love Without Fulfillment" or "Nightmusic" - although most of the songs on record are very experimental creations such as "Circumambient", and the best "Symphonia IX." Full Review »
  3. Mar 10, 2012
    10
    Wasnt sure of the album until i listened to it for about the 5th time....then it really hits you. Its soft listening but with addictive beatsWasnt sure of the album until i listened to it for about the 5th time....then it really hits you. Its soft listening but with addictive beats which drag you in. Second best to John Talabots Fin so far this 2012. Full Review »