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Jul 2, 2021The pairing is as gripping as it is vulnerable, bringing these characters to life in a way that feels real and authentic. Even if this is ultimately the only collaboration these two will share, their survey of familial pain and heartbreak is powerfully affecting and thoroughly human.
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Jul 6, 2021On ‘Utopian Ashes’, Bobby Gillespie and Jehnny Beth breathe new life into an old formula, and surface triumphant.
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Jul 6, 2021Aiming to pin down essential emotions in a personal way, ‘Utopian Ashes’ succeeds beyond their imaginations – a crisp, entrancing song cycle, it’s unaffected feel helps it linger long in the memory.
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Jul 2, 2021By pushing each other out of their comfort zones, Beth and Gillespie make Utopian Ashes an unabashedly theatrical -- and consistently entertaining -- look at falling out of love.
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Jul 2, 2021It’s immensely, moreishly listenable. Gillespie and Beth work well as narrators and protagonists. She spritely and unbowed; he simultaneously vengeful and regretful.
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Jul 2, 2021Utopian Ashes, then, is a marriage made in musical heaven, conjuring marital hell.
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Jul 1, 2021It’s understated, and a quietly affecting success.
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Jun 30, 2021Whether this is the beginning of an extended musical partnership or just a one-off, it’s a powerful and rewarding album. That’s especially the case for those who have been through the more challenging parts of the broken relationship mill.
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Classic Rock MagazineJun 29, 2021Together they craft a devastatingly detailed fictional portrait of a married couple falling apart in a maelstrom of drugs, regret and the sort of silence that "murders the heart." [Summer 2021, p.87]
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MojoJun 29, 2021It's not easy listening, but profoundly engaging and redemptive. [Aug 2021, p.80]
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UncutJun 29, 2021The most emotionally mature and fully realised work Gillespie has delivered in years, laying grainy, soulful, impassioned vocals over sumptuously old-school chansons clothed in vintage orchestral country-rock arrangements. [Aug 2021, p.27]
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Jun 29, 2021Throughout, there are echoes of the rootsier moments from Give Out But Don’t Give Up, but with the earlier swagger replaced by vulnerability. It’s as pleasing as it is unexpected.
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Jul 22, 2021Only once, on the wallowing “You Don’t Know What Love Is,” does the record get so caught up in its imagined misery that it becomes an actual buzzkill. Otherwise, Gillespie and Beth execute these songs with the tact of seasoned studio pros and the vigor of a couple crushing shared Righteous Brothers favorites at karaoke.
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Jul 2, 2021The more upbeat, jazzy “Stones of Silence” on which Beth shows off the full Patti Smithiness of her voice is a welcome moment of invigoration on an otherwise sleepy album.