Michael Kiwanuka FUDGE
Released Oct 23, 2026 Polydor Records
Established consensus 8 professional reviews Updated Oct 25, 2026
Broadly positive consensus
Michael Kiwanuka’s FUDGE turns creative freedom into a source of both beauty and uncertainty, earning a strong, if not unanimous, critical reception.
How ChoruScore worksCritics' Top Tracks
The songs critics returned to most
Summer Clothes
5 critic mentions
“It’s a simple, domestic image that feels perfect, like something he’d write on a note stuck to the fridge.” — Shatter The Standards
Across The Sky
4 critic mentions
“the acoustic Across the Sky starts abruptly in the middle of a chord, as if someone frantically hit the “record” button after Kiwanuka started playing” — The Guardian
California
4 critic mentions
“California" brings the rhythm section back into focus, but the telephone-filtered vocal, reminiscent of Damon Albarn’s work as 2-D, keeps things slightly at a remove.” — The Line of Best Fit
Full critic consensus
Michael Kiwanuka’s FUDGE turns creative freedom into a source of both beauty and uncertainty, earning a strong, if not unanimous, critical reception. Across eight professional reviews, the album holds a 75/100 consensus score, with critics praising its intimate songwriting, open-ended arrangements, and emotional candor. Kiwanuka strips back the sound and lets songs take their own shape, moving between tender romance, grief, existential unease, and the hope of healing. The result feels loose and exploratory, but often deeply affecting.
Critics repeatedly single out “Sing,” whose spacious rise and wavering vocal carry love and grief in equal measure, and “Summer Clothes,” admired for its airy ease and vivid domestic tenderness. “You Sent Me Flying” brings acoustic warmth and swelling strings to a delicate love song, while “Move In My Direction” makes its intimacy feel strikingly raw. “Stars” sets spiky guitar against lush strings, and “Drowning In Your Heart” turns simplicity into a quietly powerful statement. These are among the best songs on FUDGE, alongside “Love In My Heart,” a slowly unfolding highlight that some critics find transporting and others feel drifts into an overlong haze.
That tension defines the album’s mixed edges: its freedom to wander creates space for unexpected beauty, yet the sprawling pace and lack of conventional structure can test a listener’s attention. Still, reviewers agree that Kiwanuka’s confidence in his own artistic direction gives the record a coherent emotional core. For a FUDGE review verdict, the critical consensus is clear: this is a rewarding, often gorgeous work whose openness makes room for both uncertainty and genuine feeling.
Track Ratings
How critics rated each track, relative to this album (0-100). Only tracks that made critics feel something are rated.
Summer Clothes
California
Just Another Moment
Drowning In Your Heart
Love In My Heart
Across The Sky
Stars
You Sent Me Flying
Move In My Direction
Steve's Paradise
Sing
Swings and Roundabouts
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What Critics Are Saying
Deep insights from 10 critics who reviewed this album
Critic's Take
Michael Kiwanuka takes care of every sonic detail on FUDGE, and as a result it is impeccably cohesive, wonderfully unified. For long-term fans, the best songs on FUDGE are an absolute treasure trove: “Just Another Moment” moves from beatific yacht rock into a broader, cinematic orchestral rendering, while “Drowning In Your Heart” revels in quiet assurance. “Move In My Direction” achieves a raw, remarkable intimacy, and on “Sing” his voice cracks as he intones words that, given the new context of his life, cut deep. That we’ve been afforded such brilliance as this at all, is always worth celebrating.
Key Points
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“Sing” is the most affecting song, its cracked vocal and words cutting deep in the context of Kiwanuka’s illness.
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Self-production gives the record a cohesive sound, while its love songs and intimate reflections show an artist true to himself.
Themes
Ro
Critic's Take
Michael Kiwanuka strips things back to their purest and most minimal form on FUDGE, where songs unfurl slowly and beautifully, unburdened by traditional structures or constraints. Most stunning is “Drowning In Your Heart,” a strikingly simple song that, in Kiwanuka’s hands, becomes deeply impactful. It is among the best songs on FUDGE, a bittersweet but beautiful reminder of his songwriting brilliance and of following that path towards beauty.
Key Points
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“Drowning In Your Heart” is the standout because its striking simplicity becomes deeply impactful in Kiwanuka’s hands.
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The album’s stripped-back, slow-unfurling songs make a bittersweet but beautiful reminder of songwriting brilliance and the pursuit of beauty.
Themes
Critic's Take
Michael Kiwanuka evidently felt confident enough to let these songs take their own shape, and the best tracks on FUDGE are melodically stronger than you might expect from their jammed-into-existence beginnings. Whether doleful, as on “California,” or lovestruck, as on “You Sent Me Flying,” the tunes are uniformly memorable. “Stars” chafes its spiky guitar solo against opulent strings, while “Love In My Heart” has a particularly lovely string arrangement. It sounds remarkably like the work of a man who knows exactly what he wants to do.
Key Points
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“Stars” is a standout for the way its spiky guitar soloing chafes against opulent strings.
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The album’s strongest qualities are memorable melodies, warm performances, and arrangements that feel vivid rather than self-indulgent.
Themes
Critic's Take
Michael Kiwanuka’s FUDGE was a drive for playfulness and experimentation, but it was created by a man on the precipice of unforeseen tragedy. The best songs on FUDGE find their emotional heft in the spacious chorus of “Sing” and the melancholic tone of “California,” where Kiwanuka’s voice finds beauty in a tendency to waver and show fragility. At the climax of “Drowning In Your Heart,” a haywire violin rings like the uncomfortable conclusion to a chapter dramatically slammed shut.
Key Points
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“Sing” is the most affecting song, its spacious chorus carrying greater emotional heft in light of Kiwanuka’s vocal recovery.
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The album’s warm soulfulness and experimental sonic progressions make it a deeply poignant glimpse at Kiwanuka’s creative state.
Themes
Critic's Take
Michael Kiwanuka has stripped back and asserted his own artistic agency on FUDGE, with the best songs arriving when that intimacy gives way to something larger. The tenderness of “You Sent Me Flying,” with his lush voice front and centre, is one of his most quietly profound love songs yet; “Summer Clothes” succeeds on all three counts as singer, songwriter and producer. “Sing” promptly soars, though the seven-minute “Love In My Heart” loses itself in its own mantra-like fog.
Key Points
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“You Sent Me Flying” is best for the tenderness of its nylon-string ballad and what the review calls one of Kiwanuka’s most quietly profound love songs.
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The album’s stripped-back arrangements and soulful croon let the more layered moments stand out, though some songs do not earn their long runtimes.
Themes
Fa
Critic's Take
Michael Kiwanuka’s FUDGE is a reminder that beautiful and cruel can coexist without being at odds with each other. Far more understated than his work alongside Danger Mouse and Inflo, these sprawling, elegant songs carry a bittersweet feeling and a rawness their creator never intended. The best song on FUDGE is “Love In My Heart,” named the standout amid a record of loss, confusion and hard goodbyes. Yet the album’s other message is the one we ought to heed: we all have the capacity to heal from painful experiences and look forward to brighter futures.
Key Points
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“Love In My Heart” is the best song because the reviewer explicitly names it the album’s standout.
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The album’s understated, elegant songs hold loss and hard goodbyes alongside the possibility of healing.
Themes
Sh
Critic's Take
Michael Kiwanuka lets Chick Corea host FUDGE, a collection of slow soul music and a lesson in being certain of what you like. The best songs on FUDGE include “Summer Clothes,” with its beguiling arrangement and perfect, domestic image, and “Move In My Direction,” whose motorway makes the chorus all the more striking. “Swings and Roundabouts” pares things back to one other man in the studio, as Kiwanuka sings that his heart feels like a hotel room. Whatever came after Corea, no matter how scared it was of not knowing what it was doing, can at least shrug it off with one other man by its side.
Key Points
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“Summer Clothes” is the best song for its beguiling arrangement and perfect, domestic image.
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The album’s core strength is the way a live band, choir, strings, and collaborators pursue Kiwanuka’s ideas of what sounds good.
Themes
Critic's Take
Michael Kiwanuka takes Chick Corea at his word on FUDGE, sounding blissed out, untethered, with no particular destination in mind. The best songs on FUDGE make a convincing case for simply inhabiting the work: “Love In My Heart” reaches towards handmade psychedelic soul, while “Stars” supplies a friction otherwise found in short supply. “Summer Clothes” hangs on cloud-back, pleased with the view, and “Across The Sky” pares back to an acoustic reckoning with mortality and artistic posterity. The trouble with having nowhere to be is that the listener can feel under less obligation to stay, but FUDGE is often beautiful, and sometimes thrillingly strange.
Key Points
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"Stars" is the standout because its sweet vocal passages and guitar lament create friction otherwise in short supply.
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The album’s strengths are its inviting psychedelic soul and moments of beauty and thrilling strangeness, though its indulgent pacing can test the listener.
Themes
Critic's Take
Michael Kiwanuka’s FUDGE is another beauty, and its best songs find their way towards beauty and meaning by following their instincts. “Sing” is its most stirring statement, a yearning and tender love song whose faith in music makes it very moving. “Love In My Heart” gradually unfurls into something grander and more transporting, while “California” is a slow-burn, immediate highlight. The album’s freedom to wander is its great strength, from the airy sway of “Summer Clothes” to the thoughtful circle of “Swings and Roundabouts”.
Key Points
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“Sing” is the best song for its stirring, tender declaration of faith in music, made especially moving by the uncertainty surrounding Kiwanuka’s future ability to perform.
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The album’s warm, exploratory arrangements and freedom to wander give its reflections on self-doubt, perseverance and creative independence their strength.
Themes
Critic's Take
Michael Kiwanuka does romance very well on FUDGE, a delightfully loose, squashy and often sweet record. The best songs on FUDGE include “You Sent Me Flying,” gorgeous and tender over the softest strums of acoustic guitar, with strings and dreamy slide guitar gradually swooning into view. “Stars” opens fiercely, but frets that the joy of making music is slipping away; in “Sing,” the slight cracks in Kiwanuka’s voice allow real grief to shine through. That ethos rewards both him and the listener on this wonderful record.
Key Points
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“You Sent Me Flying” is the standout for its tender vocal, soft acoustic strums, and gradual, dreamy instrumental swell.
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The album’s loose, playful arrangements make room for romance and for the grief shining through songs like “Sing.”