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Adele 30 review: Critics hail new album as her best yet with epic power ballads about her divorce

The West Australian
Adele’s new album lays bare her divorce.
Camera IconAdele’s new album lays bare her divorce. Credit: CBS Photo Archive/CBS via Getty Images

“The Queen of sorrow is back to reclaim her crown” - that’s a music critic’s bold declaration after being one of the first to hear Adele’s new album 30.

Ahead of the most anticipated album release of 2021, the first reviews of the British singer’s 12-song release insists it’s everything fans love about the singer and gives a heartbreaking insight into her divorce.

The Daily Mail’s Adrian Thrills says fans should “brace themselves for heaped helpings of heartbreak and guilt, with side order of redemption and healing” with the 12 songs which he compares to 2011 hit Someone Like You.

“In interviews, she can be irreverent. On record, she plays it straight, her inner turmoil no laughing matter,” he wrote.

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“At the heart of it all, of course, is that dazzling, blue-eyed soul voice – emotional without being cloying – and her phrasing is as impeccable as ever here.

Adele's new album is being declared her best yet.
Camera IconAdele's new album is being declared her best yet. Credit: Adele

Rolling Stone, which gave the album five stars, has heralded 30 as “the best Adele album yet, while Variety also says it’s her best work to date.

Meanwhile USA Today says it’s “not at all the divorce album you’d expect”.

My Little Love - the third track on the album - is also being hailed a highlight, with it taking the form of a post-divorce conversation between Adele and her son Angelo.

Variety says it’s the song during which the audience will “push its earbuds in further to hear more clearly, not to explore the sonics but because the track has snippets of having some extraordinarily emotional conversations with her son”.

The longest song on the album Loved runs for a whopping seven minutes and has been dubbed by USA Today as what may be her “saddest song ever.”

“Singing over a gentle piano, she attempts to understand why she feels so unhappy in her relationship and weighs the risks of choosing to walk away,” journalist Patrick Ryan wrote.

Adele is said to introduce a gospel vibe for I Drink Wine, which Thrills says is “an early-hours lament, rather than a rowdy ode to boozing”.

Despite acknowledging some will find the album too self-absorbed, Thrills has declared it a “barnstorming return” for the singer.

“In an autumn of pop blockbusters that’s already seen the return of Abba and Ed Sheeran, the queen of sorrow is back to reclaim her crown,” he said.

But music bible NME offered a subdued reaction to 30, giving it only three stars.

“While Adele’s music is often charged with intense emotional sincerity, there’s an old-timey campiness here that seems intentional, and its brightly trilling strings recall the likes of Judy Garland and Gene Kelly.”

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