Cry Sugar

Cry Sugar is Birchard's first album of new material since his 2016 soundtrack for the video game Watch Dogs 2.[3] In a press release, Birchard described the album as influenced by "American decadence" and the "apocalyptic film scores" of artists such as Vangelis and John Williams."[1] Gospel and soul samples feature on much of the album, a quality rooted in Birchard's admiration for the tradition of hip-hop producers including DJ Premier, Pete Rock, and Just Blaze.[3] Chad Hugo of the Neptunes contributed to the track "Redeem".[3] The track "Stump" was inspired by Max Richter's "On the Nature of Daylight", heard in the soundtrack of Shutter Island (2010).[3]

The cover artwork by Willehad Eilers depicts a debauched scene featuring the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man in a thong.[3] A music video for the single "Bicstan" was directed by Patti Harrison and Alan Resnick.[3] Visuals for the "Megamix" and "Stump" releases were made by an artist named kingcon2k11.[4]

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	79/100[2]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[5]
Clash	9/10[6]
The Guardian	[7]
Pitchfork	7.3/10[8]
Resident Advisor	positive[9]
The Skinny	[10]

At Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, Cry Sugar received an average score of 79, based on 7 reviews, indicating "generally favourable reviews".[2]

Louis Torracinta of Clash suggested the album "may take the cake for dance record of the year," adding that it "pulls from everywhere, all at once, swimming in the old and celebrating ecstatically the new."[6] David Renshaw of The Fader stated that Birchard's "love of the wildly high BPM club sound of hardcore is blended with soulful gospel samples and epic movie-score landscapes to create a project that's irreverent, yet moving and hypnotic as well."[3] Alexis Petridis of The Guardian stated that "there's an edge-of-chaos tone to Cry Sugar, an album on which almost every sound fizzes with distortion and the music occasionally sounds on the verge of collapse."[7] Gaby Wood of Resident Advisor called the album Birchard's "definitive solo effort" which "sees him re-emerge not as a jack but a master of all trades, fusing soul, jazz, happy hardcore and dance into vibrant, technicolor explosions of sound that succinctly capture the mood of our time in all its fitful glory and pain."[11]

All tracks produced by Hudson Mohawke, except "Redeem", co-produced with Chad Hugo, and "Kpipe", co-produced with Káryyn.

Notes

• "Kpipe" is stylised in all caps.

Sample credits

• "Intentions" contains a sample of "I Pray", performed by Copyright, featuring Imaani.
• "Behold" contains a sample of "For Your Glory", performed by Tasha Cobbs.
• "Redeem" contains a sample of "Redeemed", performed by Rev. Gerald Thompson.
• "3 Sheets to the Wind" contains a sample of "Cry Sugar", performed by Dyson's Faces.
• "Some Buzz" contains samples of "God Has Smiled On Me", performed by Rev. James Cleveland, and "I Think I Am In Love With You", performed by Wee.

Credits adapted from official liner notes.

• Cry Sugar at Discogs (list of releases)