The singer returns with a brand new album which includes collaborations with Pharrell Williams, Missy Elliott and Nicki Minaj. Love London Love Culture rounds up the reviews…
The Guardian: **** “Rather than allowing tragedy to linger, Grande focuses on the increased appreciation of life that followed. Her brush with mortality has aligned her creative vision and all aspects of her musical heritage are given their dues.”
Consequence of Sound: “It’s rare for an album with so many stunning moments to suddenly become so aggressively mediocre. Still, the highs of Sweetener outweigh the lows.”
Cosmopolitan: “She packs the multi-faceted nature of what it means to be a person into a record that helps articulate the pain, complications, joy, freedom, and strength that it takes to be alive. And she does it her way. Like a true diva.”
NME: **** “Ariana’s such as star that she can turn some of the album’s most left-field cuts into effortlessly charming pop gold.”
Variety: “At some point in the process of listening to Ariana Grande’s fourth and most delightful album, “Sweetener,” which is slightly dominated by six songs produced and co-written by Pharrell Williams, it may occur to you: Well, of course she was going to hook up with the guy who made “Happy” one of the biggest hits of the decade.”
The Telegraph: **** ” as modern, branded, blockbuster pop albums go, Sweetener is a delightful confection.”
Evening Standard: “On an album that arrives carrying a jumbo jet’s worth of baggage, Grande moves onwards and upwards with a remarkable lightness to her step.”
Slant Magazine: *** 1/2 “an album that’s both consistent and refined, a reflection of Grande’s growing awareness of herself as an artist and her place in the world.”
Irish Times: ***** “This is potentially Grande’s defining album as an artist and primarily dealing in self-care, she proves that to be best that you can be, all you have to be is okay.”
The Times: **** “You would expect this album to reflect on the situation, to contain a few lachrymose ballads about coming together, staying positive and holding on. In fact, Grande has provided resistance of a different kind: carrying on in such poptastic fashion, as if the whole thing never happened.”
The Daily Mail: *** “It’s a waste of Grande’s voice, which seldom reaches its full wattage. Maybe she just didn’t feel like singing to the rafters. Or maybe the producers couldn’t see that the one magic ingredient here was the one that had nothing to do with them.”
Express.co.uk: **** “there is no sense of fussiness or over-elaboration in her vocals, only an impression that, at just 25 years old, a career of Streisand-like excellence may well be beckoning.”
Sweetener is available to buy now.