Banga

AlbumJun 01 / 201212 songs, 58m 40s
Singer-Songwriter Art Rock
Popular Highly Rated

Smith is at her most poetically inspired on her first album of new material in eight years. \"Amerigo\" and \"Constantine\'s Dream\" recount the New World\'s \"discovery\" in respectively edenic and apocalyptic fashions, with her stately take on Neil Young\'s \"After the Gold Rush\" providing a charming coda. Eschewing punk riffs for relatively lush arrangements, Smith celebrates Amy Winehouse in the doo-wop gem \"This Is the Girl\" and offers her most elegant pop song to date with \"April Fool.\"

7.1 / 10

Patti Smith's new guitar-driven album, her first since 2007's Twelve, is a meditation on exploration and adventure.

B

Patti Smith is one of the rare pop artists whose work seems like it should come with footnotes—or at least hyperlinks to Wikipedia articles. Smith’s new album Banga is her first collection of new songs since 2004, and it’s one of her most immediately engaging, with a handful of relatively straightforward rockers and…

9.0 / 10

Ancient pathways, Nubian vows, bridges of magpies, whispering saints and rusty bikes piloted by writers in tattered coats…

Check out our album review of Artist's Banga on Rolling Stone.com.

In the eight years since Patti Smith's last studio effort of new, original material, Trampin', she's toured, assembled art installations, had her photographs collected for global exhibition, and written Just Kids, a National Book Award-winning memoir.

8.0 / 10

"We danced naked as they baptized in the rain of the new world."

<p>Patti Smith's 11th album combines accessible, even pretty, songs with sneering punk to magnificent effect, writes <strong>Kitty Empire</strong></p>

Listening to a Patti Smith album always feels like an invitation to glimpse her roster of influences.

9 / 10

Patti Smith is reunited with the personnel who helped make her classic Horses album for a new set that finds her as spirited as ever, writes <strong>Dave Simpson</strong>

50 %

Banga Sony ****

Punk rock priestess returns to her roots with her strongest album in years. CD review by Lisa-Marie Ferla

8 / 10