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- Summary: The first new non-soundtrack release in nearly 25 years from Matt Johnson's post-punk band The The was co-produced with Warne Livesey.
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- Record Label: Ear Music
- Genre(s): Pop/Rock
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Score distribution:
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Positive: 7 out of 8
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Mixed: 1 out of 8
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Negative: 0 out of 8
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Sep 3, 2024Against the odds, it is worth the wait. .... The 12 new songs mostly recall the commercial peaks of Mind Bomb and Dusk, and there’s a comforting, analogue hum to the proceedings. A Johnny Marr-esque lick here, and a Bernard Herrmann horn stab there: all help create the warm, dusty sound instantly recognisable as The The.
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Sep 13, 2024At turns incisive and deeply felt, Ensoulment is more than a welcome return for Johnson and The The.
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MojoSep 3, 2024Sometimes co-written with The The’s guitarist Barrie Cadogan or keyboardist DC Collard, these 12 songs cement Johnson’s ‘cherishable agitator’ status. And – whisper it – there’s hope here, too. [Oct 2024, p.86]
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Jan 10, 2025The mixture of the mundane and the otherworldly is powerful. The writing is exceptionally good. You probably forgot about The The (I did), but it’s time to take notice again.
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Sep 5, 2024Johnson wordlessly serenades us as the band plays out over the final credits. A reminder that sometimes the personal hits harder and lasts longer than anything else.
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Sep 11, 2024Back when he was making his pronouncements about Thatcher-era England, the Gulf wars, and AIDS, the Internet as we know it did not exist. Now, insights and commentaries, thousands by the hour, are only a click away. If that makes an album like The The’s Ensoulment seem a little quaint, it’s a quaintness worth wallowing in.
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Sep 3, 2024Generally things are slower and less musically direct, and so you have an amalgamation of alt.rock, leftfield folk, pop, jazz and touches of electronica. However, while stylistically varied, it can feel a little lacking in variety and dynamism at times, as it very much sits in mid-tempo mode for much of the 12 tracks, the sprightly pop of their early period rarely appearing. Johnson feels nicely in sync with his band though, who possess both precision and personality in their playing. [Oct 2024, p.42]