"Far Out" / "Follies Fixture" Released: 26 February 2021
"Sorry Kid" Released: 22 March 2021
Collections from the Whiteout is the fourth studio album by the English singer-songwriter Ben Howard, released on 26 March 2021.[3][4]
Singles
The lead single from the album, "What a Day", premiered on Annie Mac's BBC Radio 1show on 26 January 2021.[2] A second single "Crowhurst's Meme" was released 2 February 2021.[5] The third and fourth singles, "Far Out" and "Follies Fixture" were released on 26 February 2021.[6] The fifth single, "Sorry Kid" premiered on Annie Mac’s show on 22 March 2021.[7]
The album was met with positive reviews from music critics. On Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100, the album was scored a 69, which indicates generally favourable reviews.[9] Ben Lynch of DIY Magazine gave the album 4 stars, calling the album "Melancholy, meticulous and achingly grand", elaborating that "His dialling down the traditional guitar/vocal folk and diving deeper into a range of electronics, whether the harsh distortion of ‘Sage That She Was Burning’ or the bright, tactile ‘Metaphysical Cantations’, is a primary deviation here. ‘Follies Fixture’, the opener and a highlight, expresses this newfound path from the onset, its entrancing swirl likely to divide fans while potentially turning a few new heads his way. Make no mistake though, Collections From The Whiteout remains in the truest sense a Ben Howard release."[18] The Independent's Roisin O'Connor and Rachel Brodsky say that "instead of a too-many-cooks situation, which this easily could’ve been, [producer Aaron Dessner] and Howard find cozy nooks for everyone. The singer’s reedy voice is the drawstring that ties it all together."[19] Hannah Jocelyn of Pitchfork gave the album 6.9 out of 10, saying that "Whiteout doesn’t always sound like a revelation, but it allows Howard to open up, letting in new lyrical and musical ideas that complement his own without overwhelming them."[20]
Other reviews were less positive. John Murphy of musicOMH.com gave the album 3 stars, explaining that "there’s certainly a lot to take in on Ben Howard’s fourth album – not all the ideas work in fairness, and there’s a few too many moments which feel like half-sketched ideas. Yet Dessner makes a decent foil for him and for those who have joined Howard on his career journey to date will be more than happy to continue travelling with him."[21] PopMatters' Brice Ezell gave the album 6 out of 10, saying that "if Whiteout is an imperfect album, it is one that also evinces Howard’s refusal to stay in a single musical lane."[22]
Commercial performance
Collections from the Whiteout spent its first week of release at number one on the UK Albums Chart (with first-week sales of 15,621 copies, including 1,759 from sales-equivalent streams).[23] Unusually for a number one album, it recorded no other weeks in the chart.
