Diamond Jubilee is the seventh studio album by Canadian band Cindy Lee, the project of musician Patrick Flegel. A triple album (double CD), it was released on 29 March 2024 on Flegel's own label Realistik Studios, available exclusively on YouTube or for purchase from a Web 1.0-style Realistik Studios website.[1] On 23 October 2024, it was released on Bandcamp and physical pre-orders were made available.[2]
The album received widespread critical acclaim upon its release, listed by Pitchfork as the #3 best album of the first half of the 2020s and the #1 best album of 2024.[3]
Diamond Jubilee was released to widespread critical acclaim. According to the review aggregator Metacritic, Diamond Jubilee received "universal acclaim" based on a weighted average score of 95 out of 100 from 5 critic scores.[4] Andy Cush of Pitchfork gave the album a 9.1/10 review, calling it "an essential trove of music" where "each song is like a foggy transmission from a rock 'n' roll netherworld with its own ghostly canon of beloved hits".[10] It was the highest rating awarded by the website to a new album since Fiona Apple's 2020 album Fetch the Bolt Cutters.[12]
Concluding the review for AllMusic, Marcy Donelson called the album, "a sprawling epic whose uncanny, time-worn textures sound less like a vinyl alley-find and more like a cassette discovered in the cabin of a great-uncle's shipwrecked houseboat. It’s a beautiful, immersive, and above all, dreamlike set that easily rewards the investment in its length."[5]
Elise Soutar of Paste rated the album 9.2/10, calling it Cindy Lee's "bittersweet magnum opus" that "is easily the densest, most rewarding body of work they have released to date—a staggering collection of psychedelic pop songs that can be difficult to tackle head on, if only due to the sheer quantity and quality of the work".[1]Exclaim! gave the album a Staff Pick, with reviewer Kaelen Bell writing, "Built on strains of '50s girl group pop, lush '60s psychedelia, itchy '70s radio rock, lo-fi '90s clutter and sparkling production choices grafted on from some alternate universe, Diamond Jubilee feels like the defining portrait of Cindy Lee as both artist and vessel."[13]
