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9.0
88399
9.0 |
All Music
While the album is not as fluid as BLACKsummers'night and has a couple frayed ends, it includes a high quantity of open-hearted ballads and variable-tempo jams that sparkle with indisputable power. Each one is supremely sculpted
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9.0
88883
9.0 |
The Line Of Best Fit
Very few albums are worth such a long wait, though, but blackSUMMERS’night is one of them – it’s an album that should live forever, purely because it sounds so detached from time
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8.4
88578
8.4 |
Pitchfork
The album may be musing or abstracted, but that’s his hallmark, and blackSUMMERS’night is polished to a blinding sheen
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8.0
88382
8.0 |
Spin
So assured of its luxuriance that it clocks in at a trim 46 minutes, blackSUMMERS’night nonetheless leaves one sated
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8.0
88383
8.0 |
Rolling Stone
The ambitious R&B vet delivers Prince-ly pleasures on a sweeping LP
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8.0
88384
8.0 |
The Guardian
Maxwell is singing wonderfully, from the airy falsetto in 1990x to the beautiful vulnerability in Listen Hear
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8.0
88387
8.0 |
Exclaim
Sonically, the sound is purring percussion, soothing electronics and stirring orchestral vibes
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7.0
88567
7.0 |
Beardfood
A new-age lounge gem that dives deep into feelings and emotion.
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7.0
88385
7.0 |
PopMatters
blackSUMMERS’night may not be a fully satisfying meal, but there are enough tasty morsels to leave us craving for the final one-third of the trilogy
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7.0
88586
7.0 |
The Music
Maxwell flows over instrumentals and inhabits different soundscapes with all the ease and comfort of trying on a new tailor-made suit
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7.0
88642
7.0 |
Clash
Retains Maxwell’s sense of wonder and allure while opening him up to a new wave of electronic ambience
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6.5
88851
6.5 |
Spectrum Culture
Despite its many flaws, blackSUMMERS’night is one of the year’s most fascinating R&B albums and proof that the genre’s old guard is just as capable of creating innovative, mind-bending music as the Frank Oceans and Beyoncés that populate its vanguard today
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6.0
88386
6.0 |
The Observer
Where his debut was part Marvin Gaye, part Prince, blackSummers’ Night is light on funk, making its creator, in the era of Frank Ocean, look like the yesterday’s man of R&B
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6.0
88897
6.0 |
The Irish Times
There are far too many moments here when he appears to be relying on that rich, chocolate voice to woo you rather than try something different or risky
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