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8.0
133838
8.0 |
Rolling Stone
He focuses on lyrics and delivery in songs that have a powerful exposed-nerve feel
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8.0
133826
8.0 |
The Guardian
Grief and his wife’s brush with cancer inspired Sheeran to make this insular record with Aaron Dessner of the National. It’s downcast yet full of new ideas – but will fans take to it?
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7.0
133827
7.0 |
Clash
Unsheathing himself from the gloss of his prior work, Ed Sheeran has delivered a work of great truth
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7.0
133891
7.0 |
The Irish Times
Sincerity without sentimentality can go a surprisingly long way on the star’s fifth solo album
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6.0
133894
6.0 |
The Independent
The final album in the singer-songwriter’s ‘maths’ series includes some beautifully pared-back musicianship, and Sheeran at his most vulnerable
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6.0
133835
6.0 |
NME
Written with The National’s Aaron Dessner as death and depression enveloped his life, these brutal circumstances are reflected in these lo-fi missives
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6.0
133877
6.0 |
musicOMH
His genius is to take very personal experiences and channel them into songs which anyone can relate to, making an album that will provide succour to many in trying times
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6.0
133843
6.0 |
The FT
The often-ridiculed singer delivers a fine vocal performance in songs asking for empathy
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6.0
133857
6.0 |
The Observer
Framing his recent grief and depression in a gauzy wash of sound courtesy of producer Aaron Dessner, the embattled songsmith continues to deal in powerful universals
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5.0
133926
5.0 |
Spectrum Culture
Though Subtract is far from perfect and even falls into some of the same traps as every other Sheeran record before it, it represents a big step in artistic growth in an artist that, years ago, felt like a lost cause, stuck in the pop machine
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4.0
133828
4.0 |
The Line Of Best Fit
In the final calculation of his mathematical series, the biggest problem to work out is what it was all for. Adding one more piece to the four chart-busting albums already in the sequence equals the unstoppable Ed Sheeran continuing as he always has – expertly pushing the numbers to new highs, but inevitably leaving larger questions unanswered
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3.8
133879
3.8 |
Pitchfork
Ed Sheeran has bragged that he wrote seven of his new album’s songs in a combined two and a half hours. It’s easy to believe him
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3.0
133873
3.0 |
Sputnik Music (staff)
See review
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3.0
133901
3.0 |
Slant Magazine
Throughout the album, the ever-changing tides of everyday living are hardly explored with much complexity
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