In this Album Of The Week review, Stereogum's Margaret Farrell praises Kelela's new album, new avatar, released on Warp Records, arguing that it renders conventional genre labels inadequate. Farrell contends that the record collapses the boundaries between R&B, electronic music, pop, hip-hop and rock, driven throughout by a "quiet tenderness" that persists even amid its most abrasive, industrial textures. The review frames the album as a reflective reckoning arriving nearly a decade after Kelela's 2017 debut Take Me Apart, with the singer revisiting emotions she had once guarded against.

The review highlights the prominent use of electric guitar, citing influences ranging from Incubus and Linkin Park to Janis Joplin, while insisting the record should not be flatly labelled "rock" and noting that rock's roots lie in Black music. Producer Oscar Scheller is named as Kelela's principal collaborator, tasked with building "intersections" that sit neither in one genre nor another. Farrell singles out tracks including "goin down" (likened to Burial), the closer "if we meet again", the restrained "don't piss me off", and "new life forms" featuring Fousheé, also praising the way guest features are sequenced so collaborators enter Kelela's world rather than dominating it.