News
Beth Orton howls from inside The Ground Above and makes age sound beautifully weathered
By Editorial Team - July 2, 2026
Summary
Pitchfork reviews Beth Orton’s The Ground Above, a self-produced Partisan album where live arrangements, cracked vocals and grief-heavy writing deepen her late-career renaissance.
Key Facts
- Category: News
- Published: July 2, 2026
- Tags: beth orton, the ground above, partisan, folk, experimental rock, pitchfork review, Folk / Experimental Rock Review
Beth Orton’s The Ground Above gets 2 July review attention, and the record seems to confirm that her Weather Alive era was not a one-off late-career glow but a new language. Pitchfork frames the Partisan album as snowy, self-produced and alive with the friction of age, health, grief and love that can comfort without curing anything. Orton brings back players including Sam Beste, Tom Skinner and Shahzad Ismaily, while Leo Abrahams and Adrian Utley add fresh texture. The result is not the beat-heavy comedown folk of her earliest mythology, but something more lived-in and stormlit: cracked voice, live-room atmosphere, horns, guitars, patience and arrangements that let the ache stay visible. The Ground Above sounds like an album about still being here, not triumphantly but honestly, standing in the squall and refusing to mistake survival for neat resolution.
Source: https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/beth-orton-the-ground-above/