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Nov 4, 2015He has made five albums, at least three of which are very fine indeed. But concern was growing that he might have peaked creatively. Bleeds refutes that notion emphatically, within a minute of the start.
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Nov 3, 2015Bleeds is a concise and heavily focused record that can proudly sit in and amongst his best.
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Jan 4, 2016Smith never went away exactly, but Bleeds feels like as storming comeback.
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Dec 2, 2015There's an enigmatic quality to his rapid-fire narratives, which bounce between composed and freestyle. And yet Bleeds is also clearly one of his most dynamic, intimate and humble artistic efforts, revealing more with every listen.
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Nov 6, 2015There’s the same penchant for itchy, unusual beats from the likes of 4Tet and Fred; the same provocative, philosophical flow; and the same undertow of paranoid wariness.
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Oct 30, 2015Bleeds bends and twists genres into more combinations than are possible on a Rubix cube; splicing hip-hop, techno and even classical in ways that make it one of the most original and emotionally charged British albums of the year.
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Oct 29, 2015Sixth album Bleeds is often weighty, but sounds consistently alive, and inimitably Roots Manuva.
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Oct 28, 2015His rhymes are so layered and rapid that they are all but indecipherable, giving them endless rewind value. These features make Bleeds a dense, dark, demanding listen. But patient, socially conscious audiences will not only find it compelling, but galvanizing too.
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UncutOct 27, 2015Like 2008's Slime & Reason, Bleeds can come on a bit like an episode of "Grumpy Old MCs." But there's always room for salvation in Smith's world. [Dec 2015, p.92]
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MojoOct 27, 2015Although the second half of the album doesn't quite match up to the front, there's no sense it's dragging, either. [Dec 2015, p.88]
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Q MagazineOct 27, 2015Funny, provocative and concise at 10 tracks, Bleed is the sound of a powerful and unique voice back on peak form. [Dec 2015, p.105]
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Oct 27, 2015Bleeds isn’t a flawless album, but it is diverse and imaginative.
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Oct 27, 2015With production help from Four Tet and Adrian Sherwood, he raps tenaciously over dark beats.
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Dec 2, 2015Working primarily as a storyteller, Bleeds finds Manuva exploring a cultural landscape dominated by violence, tragedy and “hard bastards” across ten paranoid masterpieces.
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Nov 3, 2015As disappointing as Bleeds is at points, it is still a Roots Manuva album. The man can weave an intricate rhyme like few others, and his message of searching for righteousness and forgiveness is one that resonates.
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Oct 29, 2015The best songs paint him as guardian of the apocalypse, pairing his world-weary soulfulness with murky, mutant beats. Hopefully for the next album he’ll hang up his top hat and focus on those instincts instead.
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Oct 29, 2015Bleeds opens with a tirade against the free market labels pretty much everybody as bastards. That bitterness resurfaces elsewhere on the album but the urgency, so bracingly misanthropic on Hard Bastards, starts flagging halfway through.
User score distribution:
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Positive: 11 out of 12
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Mixed: 1 out of 12
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Negative: 0 out of 12
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Dec 30, 2015
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Jan 6, 2016
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Nov 5, 2015This review contains spoilers, click full review link to view.