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Oct 14, 2019This is possibly Dawson’s best work. Yes, it’s tough-going – you’ve probably realised he REALLY doesn’t dig this country of ours right now – but the blend of smarts, art and heart is more than enough to demand your ears on repeat.
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Oct 11, 2019Each of the songs here are Palme d’Or-worthy Loachian masterpieces, full of quiet tenacity on an island slowly turning sour. Playing almost every instrument, Dawson has scaled up from folk and blues to bigger, pop-facing arrangements with some of his heartiest tunes yet.
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Oct 10, 2019Capping off a decade where he has announced and solidified himself as possibly the country’s finest songwriter, Richard Dawson has produced another record of incredible melodic talent, compositional nouse and gloriously empathic writing.
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Oct 14, 2019The result is an album of uncompromising vulnerability and rawness.
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UncutOct 10, 2019Dawson's most direct album to date. ... It's hard not to conclude that 2020 is the record we need now: a state-of-the-nation address for a nation in a bit of a state. [Nov 2019, p.20]
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Dec 13, 2019Socially aware, beautifully played, dazzlingly well-crafted, and, most importantly, exceptionally moving, this is a glimpse of the future that's happening right now —and we're so lucky to have Dawson here to give his anxious, ambitious account.
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Nov 25, 2019With 2020, Dawson has applied his stream-of-consciousness narratives to the present day through a series of warm and sympathetic songs that show bewildered characters struggling with socio-political forces beyond their control.
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Oct 17, 2019This brand of tell-all genreless rock may seem impenetrable at first, but a few listens is all it takes before you’ll be hooked by Richard Dawson’s paranoia, honesty and poetry.
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The WireOct 16, 2019Bringing further gravitas and grace to mundanity, he continues in the business of poetically detailing everyman strife and significant moments. [Oct 2019, p.50]
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Oct 10, 2019It would be a stretch to say that this album is easy going, but it’s probably the most accessible of his records. It’s exciting to find such an artist trying out more populist forms.
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Oct 17, 2019On 2020, the arrangements are proudly inorganic as they lurch and blast, sputter and break. The long-form structure of the record feels more like a short story collection, and taking it in front-to-back can have an overwhelming, exhausting effect. But unlike the sometimes hopeless characters in his songs, Dawson can wield this glut of information in his favor.
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Dec 6, 2019Dawson doesn’t obscure his political predispositions, which are quite understood on tracks such as “Civil Servant” & “Fulfilment Centre,” for example. But 2020 is far from a soapbox, despite being clearly inflected by contemporary anxieties. Dawson’s characters speak for themselves through their lived experience.
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Oct 11, 2019Richard Dawson is an eccentric but clear-eyed observer of the human condition, and just as he brought something fresh to the U.K. folk tradition on 2017's Peasant, 2020 reveals how he sees the details of everyday life in a way that slips past most writers. And if it isn't always fun, the honesty and passion in this music deliver more than enough reward for your time.
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Q MagazineOct 22, 2019Dawson's vision is exceptional; his sound is harder to follow. [Dec 2019, p.109]
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MojoOct 10, 2019[Album opener Civil Servant is] sonically inventive, with vocoder interludes and a rousing final call of "Refuse! Refuse!," but its on-the-nose swipes at "Bus-fulls of meat...staring at phone-screens" can't avoid the patronising tone of 95 per cent of all songs about "the workers," written by those otherwise employed. ... Far better are songs where Dawson locates the misery and mystery of life in smaller worlds and stranger vignettes. [Nov 2019, p.90]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 27 out of 34
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Mixed: 5 out of 34
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Negative: 2 out of 34
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Oct 11, 2019I was terrified that this album could never live up to the achievement that was Peasant. But it does.
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Oct 13, 2019
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Nov 30, 2019