Category: Press Page 3 of 6

7/10 from Jessica Hopper in Spin Magazine:

“a languorous, self-produced vamp that might even qualify as
a “song cycle.” It’s about snow … piano-driven, spare, and spooky, with Bush drawing us into the deepest recesses of her voice; she’s breathy and quiet … but when she does revisit the sharp, reedy crest of her youth, it’s all the more powerful, snapping you back from the waves of softly sighing strings … Half of 50 Words for Snow consists of duets with various male singers (including Bush’s son); Elton John provides the album’s strangest and most alert moment, letting out a Chris Cornell–style grunge roar as Bush sings of hiding him under her bed during WWII. The overall dark, diaphanous sound here almost oversells the title, but it’s impossible not to get lost in 
the drift.“

Four stars from Ludovic Hunter-Tilsley in the Financial Times:

“slow eddies of piano chords and gentle percussion … wintry piano, atmospheric orchestral arrangements and an intimate, torch-lit vocal from Bush, who, at 53, has acquired a warm huskiness to her voice … the album wobbles with the hammy Elton John duet “Snowed in at Wheeler St”, and topples over on the title track in which Bush invites Stephen Fry to dream up 50 terms for snow … 50 Words for Snow elucidates its wintry theme with flashes of brilliance but the odd treacherous icy patch too“

3/4 Curiously from Greg Kot music critic of the Chicago Tribune, and another one who isn’t so sure about Sir Elton or Mr. Fry:

“Since the late ‘70s, Bush has been the sole occupant of her little corner of the art-rock world, her lush songs merging stately musicianship and fairy-dust vocals with forward-looking electronic textures. Her lyrics have moved from storybook flights populated with unicorns and demons to more mature expressions of femininity and feminism. Though her commercial successes have been few, Bush exudes a fierce independence as a songwriter-singer-musician-producer and influenced countless artists … She doesn’t focus on accolades or celebrity, but undiluted self-expression. True to form, “50 Words for Snow” floats in its own enchanted cloud, a song cycle for subzero shut-ins. Each song tosses another blanket atop a feather bed, another log on a fire, a series of stories to send the imagination drifting as winter closes in … Bush is the rare vocalist with huge range … who somehow manages to sound strikingly intimate rather than brassy or overpowering. She’s also a fine pianist who never overplays, sending out little ripples of notes that act like reassuring beacons, a necessity for songs that sometimes wander past 13 minutes. She also uses keyboards to create shimmering effects that suggest distant, flickering lights…”

4 stars from Michael Dwyer in the West Australian. Another one who doesn’t like Sir Elton:

“the subtlest album of her sparse catalogue … the avalanche part of an album that tinkles, drifts and groans in thematic vignettes which hang heavy with esoteric promise while skating around narrative … Like watching snow fall, the effect is hypnotic and inexplicably profound.  Bush’s piano style – full, resonant, uncluttered – is the backbone of the album. Its deep, commanding tone matches the mature register of her voice, still wondrously elastic but smokier … overall, what seems a whimsical conceit delivers a transporting exploration of the most wistful season of the soul, and clear progress for an artist who has learnt to choose words carefully“.

5/5 from Simon Gage in the Daily Express:

“From the beautiful, poetic low-key first track Snowflake, you can expect to take a typically eccentric journey through a snowy landscape that only Kate could come up with. The tracks are long, the guests unexpected … and there’s certainly nothing to sing along to in the car but we’re talking about a proper artist here. With a beautifully done Elton duet as a highlight, this is strange, simple and quite lovely.”

Four stars from Will Hodgkinson in The Times (behind the paywall):

“50 Words For Snow goes beyond good taste, because it is as intriguing and eccentric as it is restrained … Through an artistic process Bush is bringing us up close to a deep aspect of her life, while also capturing the childlike wonder of falling snow. The mood throughout the album is stark and, although it’s a word that gets applied to Kate Bush rather too much, ethereal. There’s a sense that the natural world is home to the mysterious beings that crop up in folklore and fairy tales … Ultimately you have to ask: would 50 Words For Snow stand up, away from the cult of Kate Bush? Yes, because it is odd, beautiful, and quite unlike anything else out there.”

Five star very happy review from Alexis Petrides at The Guardian:

“There are many peculiar things about Kate Bush’s 50 Words for Snow. If it’s not strictly speaking a Christmas album, it’s certainly a seasonal one, and the seasonal album is these days more associated with Justin Bieber than critically acclaimed singer-songwriters following their own wildly idiosyncratic path. It devotes nearly 14 impossibly beautiful minutes to Misty, a song on which Bush imagines first building a snowman and then, well, humping him, with predictably unhappy consequences … For all the subtle beauty of the orchestrations, there’s an organic, live feel, the sense of musicians huddled together in a room, not something that’s happened on a Bush album before. That aside, 50 Words for Snow is extraordinary business as usual for Bush, meaning it’s packed with the kind of ideas you can’t imagine anyone else in rock having. Taking notions that look entirely daft on paper and rendering them into astonishing music is very much Bush’s signature move. There’s something utterly inscrutable and unknowable about how she does it that has nothing to do with her famous aversion to publicity.“