''Dark Days + Canapés'' is the fourth album by British vocalist and musician Ghostpoet. Described as a standout track, the first single from the album, "Immigrant Boogie", was released in April 2017. Three more songs, "Trouble + Me", "Freakshow" and "Dopamine If I Do", were also released prior to the album. Music videos were released for "Immigrant Boogie" and "Freakshow". It was produced by Leo Abrahams and mixed by Abrahams and Kristofer Harris. "Woe Is Meee" was the second collaboration of Ghostpoet and

Daddy G Grantley Evan Marshall (born 18 December 1959), also known by the stage name Daddy G, is a British DJ and a founding member of the band Massive Attack. Biography Born in Bristol to West Indian parents, Marshall joined the Bristol music scen ...

. In an email to ''

The Fader ''The Fader'' is a magazine established in 1999 as an outlet for Cornerstone Agency, a marketing and public relations firm established by Rob Stone and Jon Cohen. The magazine covers music, style and culture. History and work It is owned by T ...

'', Ghostpoet said "I wrote this one for the struggling minds, trying to make sense of an ever-increasingly technologically connected, but lonesome world."

Reception

Commercial performance

In the UK Albums Chart charting week of August 31, 2017, ''Dark Days + Canapés'' was the No. 37 album upon its first week of release according to the

Official Charts Company The Official UK Charts Company Limited (formerly Music Industry Chart Services Limited), trading as the Official Charts Company (OCC) or the Official Charts (formerly the Chart Information Network), is a British inter-professional organisation ...

. It marks the highest position achieved by a Ghostpoet album as well as the first time that one of his albums had ranked within the top 40 based on domestic sales.

Critical reception

''Dark Days + Canapés'' was well received upon released by contemporary

music critics Music journalism (or music criticism) is media criticism and reporting about music topics, including popular music, classical music, and traditional music. Journalists began writing about music in the eighteenth century, providing commentary on ...

. The review aggregator

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

gave the album a weighted score of 79 out of 100, indicating "generally favourable" reviews. Harriet Gibsone in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'' gave the album 3 out of 5 stars, stating that it was "exhaustingly bleak" and compared "Trouble + Me" to

Radiohead Radiohead are an English rock band formed in Abingdon-on-Thames, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in 1985. The band members are Thom Yorke (vocals, guitar, piano, keyboards); brothers Jonny Greenwood (guitar, keyboards, other instruments) and Colin Gre ...

's " Street Spirit". Isa Jaward of ''

The Observer ''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper. In 1993 it was acquired by Guardian Media Group Limited, and operated as a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' ...

'' gave the album 4 out of 5 stars, concluding Ghostpoet was "now at home in this lt-rockstyle and his languid, sung-spoken monologues sound their most assured." Reviewing the album for ''The Line of Best Fit'', Joe Goggins concluded that "Ejimiwe is on positively caustic form at points, not least when he rails against modern relationships and consumerism on 'Freakshow' and frets about self-medication on closer 'End Times'. His languid delivery belies the very real anxieties that Dark Days + Canapés is scored through with, but the nervy sonic backing absolutely serves to accentuate them; what that leaves us with is an album that's more about personal politics than global ones, but that still feels scored through with the suffocating disquiet of life in 2017." In '' Clash'', critic Robin Murray described the album as "boasting a rare sense of unity" with "the aural palette bringing together hugely disparate elements to conjure something of real impact."

Andy Gill Andrew James Dalrymple Gill (1 January 1956 – 1 February 2020) was an English musician and record producer. He was the lead guitarist for the rock band Gang of Four, which he co-founded in 1976. Gill was known for his angular, jagged style of ...

of ''

The Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

'' rated the album 5 out of 5, describing it as a "great album that bodes well for Ghostpoet's future." In the review from

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

, Andy Kellman was also positive in his assessment, stating, "Rest assured, everything else on the two-time Mercury Prize nominee's fourth Ghostpoet album throbs and churns with grim, gripping realism. Parts of Dark Days + Canapés are so bleak in spirit that they sound as if they were recorded in a sweatbox built inside a slag heap."

Track listing

Charts

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dark Days + Canapés 2017 albums Ghostpoet albums Albums produced by Leo Abrahams PIAS Recordings albums