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10.0
60825
10.0 |
Independent on Sunday
Matangi reveals, more explicitly than ever, her terrible secret: that she’s also a quite brilliant pop star
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9.4
60764
9.4 |
Paste Magazine
This LP is a tight close-up on her world: her artistic abilities and credibility, her sexual bravado and simply her skills on the mic
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9.0
61241
9.0 |
Uncut
Her most exhilarating and multi-faceted album. Print edition only
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8.5
60817
8.5 |
The Line Of Best Fit
The album is not especially made to please anybody in particular - but it will at the same time spit in the face of detractors while igniting the passions of her regrouped admirers. Count us in the latter half
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8.5
61119
8.5 |
The Quietus
Matangi is the sound of M.I.A. lashing back, throwing elbows, reasserting herself
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8.4
60871
8.4 |
Sputnik Music (staff)
At once highly inventive and unabashedly fun, the album showcases the trailblazing pop star at her most expansive thus far
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8.3
60692
8.3 |
Pretty Much Amazing
It’s hard to pick highlights from a record so consistently excellent and so perfectly sequenced. There’s not a dud to be found
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8.0
60727
8.0 |
musicOMH
An album with more ideas crammed into it than most other releases this year put together. It may not always work, but when it does, M.I.A. can still sound like the most exciting pop star on the planet
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8.0
60742
8.0 |
Spin
Like its creator, Matangi is flawed, frustrating, and occasionally confusing, but it's also intermittently brilliant and completely unique
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8.0
60610
8.0 |
The Guardian
Like the woman who made it, Matangi is hugely inventive and a bit exhausting: if it's hard to take in anything other than small doses, you can't help but be glad it exists
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8.0
60611
8.0 |
Time Out
Sonically, it’s as animated and singular as she’s ever been
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8.0
60612
8.0 |
NME
Every track on MIA's comeback record chucks handfuls of sonic debris at you and is a reminder of what an important artist she is
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8.0
60613
8.0 |
Q
The quality that makes MIA a tough sell is the same one that fuels her restless, hungry, inspirational muisic: she doesn't fit anywhere. Print edition only
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8.0
60657
8.0 |
The Observer
Album number four is a return to form and, despite all the kerfuffle surrounding its conception, it might even be her best yet
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8.0
60660
8.0 |
DIY
Pop can be intelligent, provocative, divisive, and memorable, and this is M.I.A at her best
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8.0
60663
8.0 |
Evening Standard
M.I.A. at her most clatteringly spartan and, oddly for one so desperate to shake the mainstream tree, her most hardcore hip-hop
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8.0
61065
8.0 |
Loud And Quiet
It’s not all gold but, on form, both she and it are infinitely more vibrant, hook-heavy, idea-crammed and ferally danceable than anything else you’ve heard, well, probably in the last two years
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8.0
61128
8.0 |
Mojo
Ups the killer/filler ratio of its patchily captivating predecessors. Print edition only
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8.0
60747
8.0 |
Consequence Of Sound
Frankly, Matangi is the best M.I.A. album since at least Kala
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8.0
60751
8.0 |
The 405
If you were to compare the overall sound of Matangi, you'd probably find it sits somewhere between Kala and MAYA
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8.0
60752
8.0 |
Clash
The weight of her spinning worlds has allowed ‘Matangi’ to emerge as an alluring new departure point for Maya’s scintillating unwritten chapters yet to come. Welcome to M.I.A. 2.0
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8.0
61329
8.0 |
FasterLouder
It showcases all her strengths and feels urgent without being overwhelming
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8.0
61336
8.0 |
Fact
It’s drenched in attitude, bursting with melody and full of postmodern outrageousness
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8.0
61487
8.0 |
The Irish Times
As MIA wades casually through such memes as Instagram and nefarious banks, you’ll find yourself smitten with her poise and panache all over again
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7.0
61266
7.0 |
Drowned In Sound
Matangi is a welcome return to form that consolidates on the agenda set out in MAYA
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7.0
60741
7.0 |
Rolling Stone
She shows little need to resolve contradictions or make her dazzling scraps cohere. But the magic is in the frisson
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7.0
60744
7.0 |
Under The Radar
Her signature chaotic, frantic kitchen sink of noises permeate every song. There isn't much shift from album to album. She's found what works and she sticks to it
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7.0
60731
7.0 |
Slant Magazine
Matangi again establishes M.I.A. as one of the most fascinating figures in modern music, but the personal voice underlying her material remains aggravatingly half-baked
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6.5
60728
6.5 |
Pitchfork
Matangi is not without charms, but unlike her most potent releases it sounds less interested in pushing and prodding the culture forward and more content to soar safely above it
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6.0
60689
6.0 |
All Music
Top-loaded with some of its most aggressive tracks, including the title track's global litany
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6.0
60690
6.0 |
The Arts Desk
No one really doubts that, musically, M.I.A can often brew up a pretty toxic potion, but is it real subversion or merely trendy posturing? Matangi contains both
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5.0
60704
5.0 |
PopMatters
There’s no clear central theme or controlling raison d’être holding the dizzyingly eclectic Matangi together, either artistically or ideologically.
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5.0
60736
5.0 |
A.V. Club
The most interesting part about Matangi is still just its story, not its songs
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4.0
60745
4.0 |
The Skinny
Matangi is the sound of an artist cannibalizing her own back catalogue. As a result, digging out your copies of Kaya and Arular will prove more rewarding than a second slog through Matangi
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