Utopian Ashes

Pitchfork 7.3/10 Feigning coupledom, the two singers offer a fictionalized divorce album modeled after the tear-jerking country, soul, and pop duets of yesteryear. They flirt with camp without ever succumbing to it.

NME 4/5 It’s understated, and a quietly affecting success.

Rolling Stone 3/5 Easygoing late-Sixties lounge pop.

Dork 3/5 Evoking the melancholy feeling of sitting by yourself in a dark bar after a heated argument, its eclecticism is its true strength. But this melancholy is of a calm nature, of spent rage and tired eyes.

DIY 4/5 On 'Utopian Ashes', Bobby Gillespie and Jehnny Beth breathe new life into an old formula, and surface triumphant.

All Music 4/5 By pushing each other out of their comfort zones, Beth and Gillespie make Utopian Ashes an unabashedly theatrical -- and consistently entertaining -- look at falling out of love.

Gigwise 9/10 It’s a theatrical, vulnerable album that may not exactly be easy-listening, but one that is simply an experience. One of 2021’s most unexpected delights, that’s for sure.

Under The Radar 8.5/10 Though Gillespie and Beth both break from their established styles on Utopian Ashes, they strike on something truly special in the process—a bountiful collaborative relationship and a resulting record of powerful drama and sweeping instrumental beauty.

Clash 8/10 Aiming to pin down essential emotions in a personal way, ‘Utopian Ashes’ succeeds beyond their imaginations – a crisp, entrancing song cycle, it’s unaffected feel helps it linger long in the memory.

Mojo 4/5 It's not easy listening, but profoundly engaging and redemptive.

The Observer 4/5 The Primal Scream frontman trades brashness for contemplation in this rewarding collaboration with the former Savages singer.

Spectrum Culture 54% Utopian Ashes strives to create the sort of cutting story of failed love that lasts for a lifetime, but the actual result has the impact of an episode of a network television drama. It has moments of genuine emotional pathos, but they come with a sense of artistic deja vu that becomes difficult to ignore.

The Irish Times 4/5 This minimal, pared-back line-up works wonders in offering something dramatically different to Gillespie and Beth’s respective bands, or any usual expectations and preconceptions.

Uncut 8/10 It is also the most emotionally mature and fully realised work Gillespie has delivered in years, laying rainy, soulful, impassioned vocals over sumptuously old-school chansons clothed in vintage orchestrally country-rock arrangements.