Dumb Flesh is the second studio album by the English experimental musician Blanck Mass, released on 11 May 2015 (2015-05-11).
Critical reception[]
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Dumb Flesh was met with positive critical reviews. At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews and ratings from mainstream critics, the album has received a metascore of 77, based on 19 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews."[1]
AllMusic reviewer Heather Phares awarded the album four out of five stars and observed that:"loaded with undeniable hooks and beats, the album is "dumb" in the best way possible, and embraces the "flesh" part of its title by making bodies move."[2] Nina Corcoran, writing for Consequence of Sound:"The album is vivid between shadows, pulsing with the diseased blood of a body slowly losing its motivation to carry on."[3] Tristan Bath from Drowned in Sound opined that it was:"This is beautiful, disgusting, danceable, and nightmarish music."[4] Pitchfork critic Nathan Reese observed that:"... their music's pure momentum almost guaranteed its audience by force alone."[6] Ian King, writing for PopMatters, rated the album eight stars out of ten and described it as:"Powers puts the body at the forefront of his audience’s mind is by suggesting that they move it."[7]Exclaim! reviewer Daniel Sylvester, who scored the album eight out of ten, opined that: "As one half of electronic psych drone purveyors Fuck Buttons, Power originally created Blanck Mass to explore beatless and formless ambient music. With the release of his follow-up, Dumb Flesh, Power abandons this singular musical mode, bringing with him myriad recording styles and techniques."[5]
Ben Ratliff from The New York Times commented that: "he’s giving you something you might find familiar or even commercial by its basic outlines. But he’s still got ways to make it uncanny: close, loud and abrupt."[9]The Quietus reviewer James Ubaghs observed that:"A reoccurring feature is the way that vocal samples frequently sound like synths, and synths sound almost like vocals, on the verge of attaining sentience."[10] Sam Shepherd, in his review for musicOMH commented:"There are some fine moments here, but all too often Dumb Flesh seems like a diluted version of Fuck Buttons."[11]
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