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10.0
44288
10.0 |
Daily Telegraph
On a production level, this album is cutting-edge, on a lyrical level it is brutally brilliant. It will melt your ears and your heart
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9.0
44335
9.0 |
Independent on Sunday
In years to come, Ill Manors will be recognised as a damning document of Cameron's Britain. But that can wait. In the present, this is one of the most exhilarating albums of the year
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8.5
44903
8.5 |
Tone Deaf
Drew uses his artistry – and the album format – to convey a potent social message
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8.5
45072
8.5 |
The AU Review
What Plan B has done with Ill Manors is strike the great balance between making an album full of modern-day protest music and producing material which adequately describes the realities of a society a lot of people probably would rather not acknowledge
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8.0
45226
8.0 |
All Music
Solid, purposeful, and crafted in a manner that betrays both Drew's age and the album's hurried road to release, Ill Manors makes heavy-hitter number three for the rapper, suggesting that Plan B doesn't issue albums, just milestones
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8.0
44291
8.0 |
The Independent
Given the restrictions [of following the movie soundtrack], Plan B acquits himself remarkably well here
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8.0
44295
8.0 |
The Irish Times
These are gritty, standalone tunes that tackle issues of poverty, politics and personal allegiances, all wrapped up in Drew’s signature hip-hop melodies and skittish beats
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8.0
44302
8.0 |
The Scotsman
Drew has written just about the best – perhaps only – state of the nation album in contemporary British pop, and he’s managed to do it without compromising his integrity, its honesty or the enjoyment of the listener. These days, records don’t come much more ?important
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8.0
44327
8.0 |
Evening Standard
Drew has enough ideas for a generation, that’s why he’s arguably the sound of this one
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8.0
44330
8.0 |
BBC
Unrelentingly bleak situations depicted with a cinematic eye for detail
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8.0
44338
8.0 |
The Observer
Both the film and album will be misunderstood as being packed with gangsta cliches – sex, brutality – but Drew emerges as a pitbull fuelled not just by anger but by compassio
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8.0
44341
8.0 |
The Arts Desk
In a pop climate where so many write songs expressing banality in opaque ways, Ben Drew’s latest blast of vicious wordplay and catchy magpie adaptation of club music is invigorating
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8.0
44384
8.0 |
NME
You can’t judge this record on singalongs, only on the impact it has and Drew’s mettle. At times it’s brutal, tactless and uncomfortable, but that’s the price you pay for smashing up the hit factory
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8.0
44405
8.0 |
State
A relentless barrage of social critique on “Cameron’s broken Britain” and all the more powerful for it
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8.0
44570
8.0 |
Q
Ben Drew's masterful yet gruesome state-of-the-nation address. Print edition only
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8.0
44586
8.0 |
Drowned In Sound
His music is heartfelt, his concerns have reached a wide audience, inciting debate, and satire’s purpose is not to provide solutions - and this record is satire, if a rather despairing form which is unlikely to inspire much laughter
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8.0
45812
8.0 |
Mojo
A punishing listen certain to prove divisive among his fan base. Print edition only
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8.0
45999
8.0 |
Spin
s a prodigiously talented director and musician, Plan B can afford to play it safe and stick to gangsta-rap tropes, even if he knows that broken Britain's problems run deeper than that
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8.0
44286
8.0 |
The Guardian
A bullish musical and lyrical shift, not so much a reinvention as a reiteration
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6.0
45418
6.0 |
Uncut
Scenarios move through just about every rap production style of the past 20 years. Print edition only
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4.0
44716
4.0 |
The Line Of Best Fit
For an album that is supposed to be a revelatory exposition of the “real” inner city, Ill Manors’ imagery seems entirely mediated by cheap television drama
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