-
10.0
8395
10.0 |
Rave Magazine
...this album condenses everything great about 5:55 and rolls it up into a ball with the best parts of Beck’s patchy oeuvre to create a simply brilliant pop album. Gainsbourg père would be proud
Read Review
-
9.0
8635
9.0 |
PopMatters
IRM is a swirling mess of sounds and signifiers, tied together in how irresistible it all is
Read Review
-
8.4
8474
8.4 |
Pitchfork
Another reason to believe IRM is more than a highly accomplished puppet job: It's actually better than any album Beck himself has released in the last seven years
Read Review
-
8.3
10689
8.3 |
Beats Per Minute
No matter which direction Gainsbourg ultimately heads, one can’t help but think: It’s gonna be hard to top this one
Read Review
-
8.0
8392
8.0 |
The Quietus
...despite falling apart a little in the inspection and intention, together they've made an incredible sounding record that sounds like little else around at the moment
Read Review
-
8.0
9308
8.0 |
State
I.R.M. is such an accomplished, satisfying album and a triumph for both Beck and Gainsbourg, that it would be disappointing if this were simply a one-off project
Read Review
-
8.0
9750
8.0 |
Blurt
By crafting a bed of some of his warmest and most inventive arrangements since Mutations, Hansen provides the most comfortable setting for Charlotte's singing to date
Read Review
-
8.0
8495
8.0 |
Clash
There are also the more melodic and expectedly Gainsbourg-ian songs that ensures a true mix between these two musicians, making ‘IRM’ a triumph for both
Read Review
-
8.0
8401
8.0 |
Under The Radar
Approaching music as a role rather than means of personal expression, Gainsbourg has—once again—turned in an Oscar-worthy performance
Read Review
-
8.0
8315
8.0 |
The Scotsman
Although Gainsbourg generally adopts the breathy, intimate delivery of many of her fellow Gallic chanteuses, she is still capable of conveying an emotional range
Read Review
-
8.0
8177
8.0 |
The Guardian
...fragmentary echoes of her father's music: songs she may never surpass, but gracefully, admirably, strives to live up to
Read Review
-
8.0
8204
8.0 |
Evening Standard
Beck is at his least annoyingly arch on the lovely Time of the Assassins and his most inventive on the clattering Trick Pony
Read Review
-
8.0
8299
8.0 |
The Sunday Times
Beck’s madcap tangents may sound as if he is trying to cajole her, but Gainsbourg, unfazed, gives as good as she gets. Fascinating
Read Review
-
8.0
7743
8.0 |
The List
A redolent trip amid 60s psychedelia, Franco-pop, electro-perversion and Bananarama’s nightmares. Good, then
Read Review
-
8.0
7753
8.0 |
Uncut
...this album serves as a fitting sonic museum to Serge, one that plunders from his past while maintaining his relentlessly forward-looking, hybridised pop vision
Read Review
-
8.0
8074
8.0 |
Daily Telegraph
It’s an album not so much about mortality as survival, a hallucinogenic dream of the glorious weirdness of life. It is Gainsbourg’s best work and arguably Beck’s best in nearly a decade, too
Read Review
-
7.0
8332
7.0 |
Rolling Stone
...a tough-minded trip through some serious adult trauma
Read Review
-
7.0
8505
7.0 |
The Line Of Best Fit
...although there are nods to the influence of her father’s work, it is her collaborator Beck who shapes the record sonically despite his lack of headline status
Read Review
-
7.0
8464
7.0 |
Spin
...it sounds like a Beck album with a female singer echoing his eclectic appetites -- subdued chamber pop plus clattering rhythmic jams
Read Review
-
7.0
8465
7.0 |
Spin
...it sounds like a Beck album with a female singer echoing his eclectic appetites -- subdued chamber pop plus clattering rhythmic jams
Read Review
-
6.0
8522
6.0 |
The Independent
Gainsbourg may open the album searching for "a reason to feel", but there's no indication, by the close of the album, whether she's found it.
Read Review
-
6.0
8383
6.0 |
Scotland on Sunday
Charlotte may have just given Beck's career the kiss of life
Read Review
-
6.0
8411
6.0 |
NME
Print edition only
-
6.0
8308
6.0 |
Independent on Sunday
Trouble is, Charlotte is not much of a singer. More of a whisperer really
Read Review
-
6.0
8121
6.0 |
The Digital Fix
It’s not bad, it just lacks a spark or originality and, with acting awards in the bag, maybe it isn’t a good time to give up the day job
Read Review
-
6.0
8166
6.0 |
Drowned In Sound
An inconsistent jumble of ideas that ends up being much less of a peek inside what it is to be human than the title might suggest
Read Review
-
6.0
7927
6.0 |
The Times
We know that Beck can do better — but it’s only really on the final quarter of IRM that we hit a run of songs to truly pacify your attention
Read Review
-
6.0
7747
6.0 |
Q
Print edition only
-
6.0
7748
6.0 |
Mojo
Print edition only
-
5.0
8692
5.0 |
No Ripcord
It’s fair to say that “underwhelmed” is the word that most springs to mind with IRM. It’s not a completely futile exercise - there are some decent tracks - but it falls far short of the quality of its predecesso
Read Review
-
4.0
8082
4.0 |
The Skinny
Instead of rendering a canvas on which she can excel, Beck paints a disjointed portrait of a conflicted chanteuse
Read Review
-