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Mar 1, 2013By co-opting the title of John Coltrane’s 1965 classic, A Love Supreme, Bilal is at least hinting at lofty expectations. For the most part he exceeds them.
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Feb 26, 2013This sensual song suite about the ephemeral nature of love and what it takes to sustain happiness should end up among this year’s finest efforts.
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Feb 26, 2013As a producer and songwriter, Bilal has stepped up. As a vocalist, he remains supernaturally skilled and creative--swooping, diving, wailing, and sighing, all with complete command.
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Feb 26, 2013Bilal describes creating A Love Surreal as a surrealistic exploration of love and, indeed, he delivers on this end.
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Feb 27, 2013He’s just a great singer, backed by great players he puts to good use on a set of sticky, deceptively inventive songs
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Mar 20, 2013A Love Surreal probably doesn’t have what 1st Born Second fanatics want out of the guy, but it’s plenty beautiful on its own terms.
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Feb 26, 2013Pleasingly, A Love Surreal eschews the idea of calling in favors, instead laying bare Bilal's own songwriting and production prowess.
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Feb 26, 2013With lush, glimmering keyboards and electronics, lean indie-rock guitars or Robert Glasper’s limpid jazz piano the songs tease and insinuate. Their meanderings lead somewhere.
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Mar 6, 2013A Love Surreal is short on big, arcing-rainbow melodies as a result, but one of its joys is watching Bilal warp his voice into improbable shapes.
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Feb 26, 2013The album washes near the end with a series of spacey slow jams, but then Bilal clears away the atmospheric clutter for "Butterfly," a stark ballad built around his soaring falsetto and rippling piano by recent Grammy winner Robert Glasper.
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Q MagazineApr 10, 2013This is cosmic R&B. [May 2013, p.95]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 16 out of 18
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Mixed: 1 out of 18
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Negative: 1 out of 18
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Mar 24, 2013
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Mar 2, 2013