“it’s hard to imagine a more enjoyable and rewarding hour of music being released this year than Pale Green Ghosts: self-obsessed but completely compelling, profoundly discomforting but beautiful, lost in its own fathomless personal misery, but warm, funny and wise.
The Guardian – 5 Stars ***** (Album Of The Week)
“an exhilarating musical progression… “Pain it is a glacier… creating spectacular landscapes,” he sings on ‘Glacier’: a truth his career makes self-evident.”
The Independent On Sunday – 5 Stars ***** (CD Of The Week)
“an album that, rather than juggling empty pop–song clichés, opts to expose the rawest emotional nerves: truth and beauty, rather than lies and blather.”
The Independent – 4 Stars **** (Album Of The Week)
“As piano and strings crescendo, concluding Pale Green Ghosts’ uncommon vistas of seriousness, levity and disco dancing, you can imagine the singer departing in triumph”
Q – 4 Stars ****
“Several of the tracks here top the majesty of those on the debut… a bold, distinctive and genuinely excellent record”
Clash – 9/10
“Grant’s rich voice dovetails beautifully with the silvery synths of ‘GMF’ and ‘Vietnam’… This is audacious stuff from one talented motherfucker.”
NME – 8/10
“Emotionally raw, lyrically imaginative and caustically funny”
Metro – 4 Stars ****
“The songwriting is vintage Grant: erudite, bittersweet and catchy”
Sunday Telegraph – 4 Stars ****
“The abrupt changes between lush vintage balladry and stark electro ensure that Pale Green Ghosts is not as instantly cohesive as Queen Of Denmark. But it is arguably more satisfying, in its artistic courage, its refusal to meet expectations, and its willingness to paint a brand new picture of a gay demi-monde where the triumphs and tragedies have a deeper resonance than simple melodrama or camp… A masterpiece”
Uncut – 8/10
“After initial surprise, Queen Of Denmark fans should soon grow to love the album”
Sunday Times (Album Of The Week)
“as starkly beautiful as it’s sad”
Time Out – 4 Stars **** (Album Of The Week)
“John Grant is best known for this emotionally raw, adult FM pop, but here he lets his love of electronica blossom into a record referencing 80’s Brit synth pop, coldwave, The Moog and modern talent like Trentmøller. He’s made a motherfucking exciting record, that’s for sure.”
MIXMAG – 8/10
“GMF sees him crooning “I am the greatest motherf*cker that you’ll ever meet”… Bonkers but brilliant.
Evening Standard – 4 Stars ****
“Here he negotiates his difficult second album with aplomb… A rich musical imagination gives his self-flagellation a strangely appealing magnetism”
Financial Times – 4 Stars ****
“Bravery is second nature to former Czars man Grant, and so it proves on his second album where tuneful but traumatised electro predominates with Sinead O’Connor adding spirited support on the heroic GMF. “
The Mirror – 4 Stars ****
