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8.6
4272
8.6 |
Pitchfork
If Hegarty can craft an album this stunning about the path to paradise, just imagine how great the next one could sound, once he's actually there.
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8.5
4264
8.5 |
Daily Telegraph
It is a deep, philosophical, poetic album that will withstand playing to the end of the year – if not, perhaps, until the end of the world.
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8.0
4265
8.0 |
Drowned In Sound
For many listeners, it might take a while to shed the weight of expectation, but whereas mediocre albums are frustrating, this feels familiar already, with only a hint of wistfulness for all the possibilities imagined, and that’s passing.
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8.0
4266
8.0 |
Evening Standard
On balance, this third album, linked by Hegarty's strangely disconnected, other worldly warble, confirms him as an artist of genuine stature.
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8.0
4267
8.0 |
musicOMH
You don't buy an Antony And The Johnsons for fluffy escapism... you won't hear a more beautiful album this year... there are enough heart-stoppingly dramatic moments on here to more than justify all the excited pre-release anticipation.
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8.0
4268
8.0 |
NME
Continue to explore the creative boundaries of pop while covering all emotional bases. For that, they should be celebrated.
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8.0
4269
8.0 |
No Ripcord
If The Crying Light serves to remind us of anything, it is that Antony’s voice is indeed too stunning and too pure to be obscured with electro-charged synth beats and sweaty bodies – my initial problem with the Hercules and Love Affair record.
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8.0
4270
8.0 |
Observer Music Monthly
Hegarty is shaping up as one of the best interpreters of the surreal since the Pixies' Black Francis.
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8.0
4271
8.0 |
Observer Music Monthly
Hegarty's 21st-century soul - rarefied, churchy, but fallen and pagan too - will cast its spell once again.
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8.0
4280
8.0 |
Uncut
The Crying Light shows Antony boldly, indefatigably following his own eccentric star. It's a journey that looks set to continue, fascinatingly, for a long while yet.
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7.0
4275
7.0 |
Spin
Hegarty's voice is famously his own; stylistically, he's akin to Björk, but with a timbre closer to a saxophone.
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7.0
4278
7.0 |
The Quietus
This bleak emotional landscape is made manageable by the empathy and humanism revealed through its exploration... An invitation to the listener to step into his world. How you feel about The Crying Light will depend on how willing you are to accept.
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6.0
4279
6.0 |
The Scotsman
To Antony acolytes, his voice is an extraordinary, otherworldly, soulful instrument. To non-believers, it is an irritating, contrived quaver ripe for parody.
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6.0
4276
6.0 |
The Guardian
Hegarty can still spring surprises when the initial shock of hearing a white man who sounds like a black woman has worn off.
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6.0
4277
6.0 |
The List
Too often, Nico Muhly’s orchestral arrangements steer Hegarty’s histrionic melodrama towards emo over-indulgence and away from off-kilter energy and innovation.
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6.0
4263
6.0 |
Clash
Won’t be the commercial success ‘I Am A Bird Now’ was, but you sense its maker cares not for financial gain beyond that necessary to continue his path.
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6.0
4274
6.0 |
Rolling Stone
For many, an acquired taste... But ultimately Antony is an original, with a dark vision that never skimps on beauty.
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4.0
4273
4.0 |
PopMatters
Without the humanizing aspect of his fragility, he seems increasingly robotic and difficult to connect with.
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