"The Revolution of Super Visions" Released: 13 October 2020
"Heartlow" Released: 13 January 2021
Flock is the eleventh album by the English musician Jane Weaver, released on 5 March 2021 by Fire Records.[1] Inspired by Lebanese torch songs, 1980s Russian Aerobics records and Australian punk, the album incorporates a pop-leaning production in comparison to Weaver's previous works. Upon release, the album was met with critical acclaim, with praise towards its experimental sound.
[...] Flock is a collection of pop songs that I don't think lend themselves to just one thing, I just went with the flow and looked at each song individually. The artwork features me in a peacock chair surrounded by birdboxes waiting for the flock to return.
The record was announced in October 2020, alongside the cover art and track listing.[8][9] "The Revolution of Super Visions", a Prince-esque funk track, was simultaneously served as the lead single from the album.[6] In lead-up to the release, the album opener, "Heartlow" was served as the second single on 13 January 2021.[10]Flock was released on 5 March 2021 by Fire Records.[8] The album was released in three vinyl editions: olive-green, cream, and standard light rose vinyl editions.[11]
At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, this release received an average score of 85, based on 10 reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".[13] At AnyDecentMusic?, which collates album reviews from websites, magazines and newspapers, they gave the release a 8 out of 10, based on a critical consensus of 11 reviews.[12]
In The Guardian, music critic Alexis Petridis listed it as the best album of its release week. He lauded the album for experimenting with diverse pop styles and incorporating a "hallucinatory" production. Petridis noted similarities in the music to the works of Kylie Minogue and Dua Lipa. He also praised the lyricism and described the record as "genuinely different and exhilarating".[1] Janne Oinonen of The Line of Best Fit wrote that the album portrayed "the sweet revenge of the melody: dancefloor-friendly pop music, but of a variety that remains intoxicatingly unmoored to the conventions and codes of the earthly realm."[15] Richard Foster of The Quietus felt the album recalled "'60s girl groups, '90s grooves, and '50s sound effects". He said that it acted as a "a midwife, delivering the feeling of delight you get when listening to things that have been sat glumly in the back of the cabinet, or reassessing careworn memories given a good polish."[18]
Tim Sendra of AllMusic commended the album for exploring various genres and dubbed it as Weaver's "greatest-hits" album. He further wrote, "Flock is the work of a daring artist, a crafty writer and performer, and someone who is always worth following to see what kind of great things she might do in the future.[4] Similarly, Under the Radar's Dom Gourlay considered it "the best of all Weaver's diverse genre colliding worlds in one glorious sitting."[3]Loud and Quiet writer Alex Francis praised the album for its retro stylings and wrote that "Flock is a record which is invested in the production of a better future.[16]
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