In its review of Dean Blunt's ‘The Redeemer’ – which they later named their top album of 2013 – FACT called Blunt “the premier art prankster of our time,” while acknowledging his earnestness; Tiny Mix Tapes, who would give the album the #2 spot in their best of the year rankings, praise the work for its liberating “short-circuiting of the boundaries of taste and instilled critical response,” while speaking to the album's near-paradoxical emotional depth.

Blunt's newest odyssey, ‘Black Metal’, rides this tension between critical detachment and mainlined human feeling, and in fact he climbs ever-steeper theoretical heights just as his emotionally stark songs become, at times, startlingly intimate. ‘Black Metal’ is above all a brilliant, majestic collection of songs, encompassing everything from hypnotic long-form experiments to ballads almost disarming in their sweet simplicity, swirling equally with fascinating sounds and fascinating ideas. Blunt's influences are wide-ranging, from rock's underground pioneers (he quotes Sonic Youth in interviews; the album leads with a Big Star sample), to neoclassical composers, to early indie pop (another track samples The Pastels), to classic rock, hip-hop, and R&B. But rather than coldly compiling them, Blunt brings the works and genres he draws from into a new musical and cultural conversation.

With his newest, most accomplished, and most vexing album, Blunt invites us to draw our own conclusions in his expansive and fascinating world.