★★★★★
Adele has put on her Marigolds, shoved her hand down the blocked pipe and dragged out whatever leftovers were buried down there. This isn't the first time Adele has waded through emotional muck though - between 19 and 21, the Oscar-winning London songstress is well versed at it. But for 25, Adele Laurie Blue Adkins has confronted the blockage head on, shoved it in a petri dish and had a right good look at it.
This inspection is no easy task...
- state.ie
2015-11-26
★★★★★
Adele is only 27 years old, still young by any sensible metric, but much of 25, her third album, concerns itself with the passage of time: the inevitable accumulation of both years and vantages. It's as if she knows intimately the nauseating experience of waking up one morning, surveying a half-lived life, and thinking, "Oops...
- pitchfork.com
2015-11-23
★★★★★
t's all about the River Lea. Anyone wanting to pack as much of a punch as did - or, for that matter, , Adele's debut - should skip past the wobbly-lower-lipped piano ballads and the one kiss-off, and head straight to River Lea, track seven of this most anticipated of post-hit comebacks. Nestled among all the oaky, wistful songs in which Adele is elegantly conflicted about the past, is a gospel-tinged ode to a canalised east London rivulet...
- www.theguardian.com
2015-11-22
★★★★★
Adele called out and the world answered with hundreds of millions of YouTube views and practically impossible-to-live-up-to expectations for 25, the singer's first album in almost five years. Rather than picking up where 2011's left off, ushers in a new era for Adele -- one that hears her sounding stronger, more assured and, well, older...
- exclaim.ca
2015-11-21
★★★★★
In April 2011, Adele did her first cover interview for Rolling Stone Magazine. Her face on the front was refreshing: messy hair, simple make-up, her eyes staring straight into the lens. Her look said, powerfully, Babe, you can't fuck with this. The piece began joltingly, too, in a Hamburg park with her dog. "Aw, Louis!," she groaned. "Don't roll in the shit...
- thequietus.com
2015-11-30
★★★★★
Here's a monster of an unenviable task: following up an album that sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, spawned multiple ubiquitous singles, won a truckload of Grammys, spent 24 nonconsecutive weeks at number one, and was labeled by Billboard as "the Greatest Album of All Time"--whatever that means. Adele's 21 was the kind of phenomenon that doesn't happen in the music world anymore. Albums are obsolete for the average listener, right? Digital track sales are plummeting...
- absolutepunk.net
2015-11-25
★★★★★
Here's a monster of an unenviable task: following up an album that sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, spawned multiple ubiquitous singles, won a truckload of Grammys, spent 24 nonconsecutive weeks at number one, and was labeled by Billboard as "the Greatest Album of All Time"--whatever that means. Adele's 21 was the kind of phenomenon that doesn't happen in the music world anymore. Albums are obsolete for the average listener, right? Digital track sales are plummeting...
- absolutepunk.net
2015-11-29
★★★★★
Sound: Adele is the best-selling artist of the decade. While her music is not the most complex, it is soulful, almost beyond belief. From a respect standpoint, Adele crushes the modern day stereotype of pop singers. She isn't where she is because of her looks, dance moves, or off-stage antics. Her voice is amazing, no auto-tune needed. To top it off, she writes all her own material and doesn't saturate her music with the electronic beats and samples that are so prevalent in pop music today...
- www.ultimate-guitar.com
2015-11-29
★★★★★
She has measured out her life with coffee-table tunes: after 19 and 21 , here is 25 , another milestone in the now 27-year-old Adele Adkins MBE's successfully packaged emotional development. Never one for youthful giddiness, her third album is strikingly authoritative, tending towards the imperious even when expressing vulnerability yet rarely coming over as soullessly efficient...
- www.mojo4music.com
2015-11-21