Albums to watch

Blue Morpho

Ed O’Brien

Blue Morpho

Second solo album from the Radiohead guitarist working with producers Paul Epworth and Riley MacIntyre

ADM rating[?]

8.0

Label
Transgressive
UK Release date
22/05/2026
US Release date
22/05/2026
  1. 9.0 |   XS Noize

    With Blue Morpho, Ed O’Brien shows he is not afraid to step into the dark and emerge with new approaches and hard-earned wisdom. He plays through the process of confronting his past while offering the possibility of healing
    Read Review

  2. 9.0 |   musicOMH

    The Radiohead guitarist has made an uplifting album whose colours are as bright and striking as the butterfly after which it is named
    Read Review

  3. 8.4 |   Northern Transmissions

    Named after the iridescent butterfly he first encountered in Brazil, the album built its foundation in Wales before taking shape in The Church Studios in London. Ed O’Brien delved into his personal findings to echo a sound remarkably universal
    Read Review

  4. 8.3 |   A.V. Club

    The Radiohead guitarist quilts together the kind of percolating arrangements that define many of his band’s best songs
    Read Review

  5. 8.3 |   Paste Magazine

    The Radiohead guitarist quilts together the kind of percolating arrangements that define many of his band’s best songs
    Read Review

  6. 8.0 |   NME

    The guitarist’s second solo outing – but first under his actual name – offers mindfulness via a widescreen prog-folk trip
    Read Review

  7. 8.0 |   Under The Radar

    Full of wonder, full of creativity, and possibility, fully realized and here for our delight. Like the album as a whole this is a truly excellent piece. It features lyrics full of thankfulness as we “feel the grace in all of life, thank you for this time.” What a great note to end a special album on
    Read Review

  8. 8.0 |   Clash

    ‘Blue Morpho’ offers a reminder that, as he and his other bandmates have repeatedly proved, O’Brien boasts a wholly-uninhibited approach to how rock and pop music is arranged, resulting in works that move and grow like the building blocks of life itself
    Read Review

  9. 8.0 |   The Irish Times

    The guitarist’s album might be the most Radiohead side project yet to emerge from the mother ship, both bombastically bereft and compelling company
    Read Review

  10. 8.0 |   PopMatters

    An artist’s work is their own to paint. Blue Morpho sounds like the beginning of an impressive solo journey for Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien
    Read Review

  11. 8.0 |   Record Collector

    Hearing the first taste of Ed O’Brien’s second solo album, Blue Morpho, felt like connecting with a folk fantasia
    Read Review

  12. 8.0 |   Spectrum Culture

    The spiritual beacon of Radiohead is the latest in a long line of songwriters to use their art to face the void
    Read Review

  13. 7.7 |   Pitchfork

    Radiohead’s resident enigma returns, spinning Brazilian influences, vintage rocktronica, and sumptuous string arrangements into a much more confident, cohesive follow-up to his 2020 solo debut
    Read Review

  14. 7.0 |   Far Out

    He is expressing himself in a manner unlike anything else he’s ever done, and to draw yourself away from what people might expect you to bring to the table and freely experiment on untrodden terrain is a brave thing to do when you’ve got 40 years of legacy behind you
    Read Review


blog comments powered by Disqus

Watch it

Roll over video for more options

Hear it

Latest Reviews

More reviews