What they said about: Mercury Prize winning Alt J

Neil McCormick, Daily Telegraph, after Cambridge band Alt J 
won the Mercury Music Prize 
for their debut album:

“Alt J weren’t deemed such a sure shot because they have stormed the balustrades of youth culture in 2012… In another weak year for the struggling British music business, Alt J ticked the boxes of an award that favours the kind of cerebral, arty, scruffily independent music that serious music cognoscenti admire but 
fewer and fewer people actually buy.”

Tim Jonze, live blog on guardian.co.uk: “Amazingly, no newspapers (including us) managed to review Alt-J’s album when it came out, it really did creep in under the radar.”

Jonny Ensall, Time Out: “Alt-J 
are not unworthy winners. Their debut record is a mixture of folky harmonies and guitar picking rhythms, electronic beats, idiosyncratic vocals and lyrics about matadors, penetrative sex and some dame called Matilda. It’s a beguiling strange and entrancingly beautiful album.”

Ewan Palmer, International Business Times: “There was 
a time when the announcement of the winner of the deliberately contrarian award was met with some surprise. Albums were once instantly dismissed from winning the award if they fell into a certain category: It’s already successful and doesn’t need extra attention and praise. It’s the best album so will be declared so elsewhere. It’s by Radiohead.”