Albums to watch

A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships

The 1975

A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships

Third album from Manchester-based indie rock / pop quartet produced by Matthew Healy and George Daniel

ADM rating[?]

8.0

Label
Polydor
UK Release date
30/11/2018
US Release date
30/11/2018
  1. 10.0 |   NME

    Clever and profound, funny and light, serious and heartbreaking, painfully modern and classic-sounding all at the same time, ‘A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships’ is a game-changing album, one that challenges The 1975’s peers – if, indeed, there are any – to raise their game
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  2. 10.0 |   DIY

    A bombastic, immaculately put together portrait of modern life
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  3. 10.0 |   Q

    Not just hugely entertaining and moving, but necessary. Print edition only

  4. 10.0 |   musicOMH

    It has a daft title, and a few daft songs with hammy lyrics. It has variety, diversity and its heart on its sleeve. It has pretence, artifice and ambition. It has, basically, everything
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  5. 10.0 |   The Skinny

    A considered, ambitious album from a band who are constantly pushing themselves
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  6. 9.1 |   Consequence Of Sound

    The Manchester rockers approach moments of profundity that are rare for rock today
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  7. 9.0 |   The Line Of Best Fit

    The 1975 wrench magnificence from crisis on their stunning new album
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  8. 8.5 |   The 405

    A Brief Inquiry is a record of substance that manages to both poke fun at and be a product of its time. The 1975 might be white-boys with guitars, but they're so much more than that
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  9. 8.5 |   Pitchfork

    The British band’s outrageous and eclectic third album attests to the worth of putting in an honest effort in the face of near-constant gloom
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  10. 8.4 |   Gig Soup

    Whilst some may find The 1975's social criticisms a bit too pretentious at times, what is apparent on this record is how much the band have matured
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  11. 8.0 |   The FT

    The indie chart-toppers look to join the pop canon with an eclectic soundscape and a new fixation on ageing
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  12. 8.0 |   The Observer

    Overall, it’s not as gleeful as their last one, but melodic light relief abounds
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  13. 8.0 |   God Is In The TV

    An engaging listen from a band who have quickly become as special as they think they are
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  14. 8.0 |   Slant Magazine

    This is a content-saturated album for a content-saturated world. Here, there’s real substance and there’s total fluff, and it’s up to us to find out what’s worth listening to
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  15. 8.0 |   Exclaim

    The messiness of the whole thing seems to be the point, part of its audacity. In most artists' hands, that would be a recipe for creative bloat. Yet more than ever before the 1975 prove themselves masters of the form
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  16. 8.0 |   Evening Standard

    A Brief Inquiry is not without its flaws but it’s never boring
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  17. 8.0 |   The Irish Times

    A pained reflection of troubling and lonely times but through expressing their own isolation, they may have switched on a light for many others.
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  18. 8.0 |   The Independent

    The band's best album yet has enough hope, radical honesty and genre-spanning breadth to make sense across divided generations
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  19. 8.0 |   Drowned In Sound

    The band truly soar here when they break new sonic ground
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  20. 8.0 |   Mojo

    It's not tidy, but fittingly for such unabashed pop maximalists, there's a lot to love here. Print edition only

  21. 7.9 |   Earbuddy

    Is it the Kid A for younger millennials? It might be, but only because us older millennials can't convince them to listen to Kid A
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  22. 7.8 |   Sputnik Music (staff)

    A batch of quality pop songs – nothing more, nothing less
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  23. 7.3 |   Paste Magazine

    For good or for ill, The 1975 have mastered the 2018 sound—a hyper-sweet confectionary of computer rhythms and dance beats and electro-breath echoes that is the hallmark of far too many albums. But underneath the puffy synthetics, they’ve also proven themselves capable of real rawness, an album for the good times as well as the tough
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  24. 7.0 |   No Ripcord

    Behind the album's ambitions lies the true narrative of A Brief Inquiry - Matt Healy's maturation as a songwriter of keenly artful coherence
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  25. 7.0 |   Clash

    It’s romantic, existential, frantic, and disorganised, and that ultimately strange mix of tones, genres, and production all adds into a singular esthetic
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  26. 7.0 |   Rolling Stone

    The UK band’s latest cuts through our social media malaise with some highly emotional songs and a sound that replicates the sonic placelessness of the streaming era
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  27. 6.0 |   Spectrum Culture

    There are those who will celebrate the artistic ambition and wonder at the genius of such a diverse and challenging record and there are those who will simply wonder whether or not the band has completely jumped the shark
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  28. 6.0 |   The Arts Desk

    The musical through ball is utterly absent, but this disconnect shouts at us to pay attention
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  29. 6.0 |   All Music

    However, taken as a whole, the album is often as disparate and difficult to wade through as the social-media landscape it hopes to comment on
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  30. 5.0 |   PopMatters

    Ends up being a middling mess of genre-hopping. The 1975 decided to try a bit of everything and the results are just completely scattershot songs
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