Professional ratings
Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
Metacritic	77/100
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic
The A.V. Club	A-
BBC Music	favourable
Drowned in Sound	9/10
The Guardian
The Independent on Sunday
Mojo
NME	8/10
Pitchfork Media	7.3/10
Q
Uncut

Plumb is the fourth full-length studio album by English alternative band Field Music, released on Memphis Industries Records on 13 February 2012. The album was recorded in their newly built studio in the band's native Sunderland. It was released on CD and on plum-coloured vinyl, a reference to the album's title. In an interview with DIY, David Brewis told the magazine, "I love the fact that the English language has so many homophones. I think it's one of those unique things about the language which really informs the English sense of humour. It tickles me that we can colour all of the album text and the vinyl plum."

The album's cover art is a collage assembled by Peter Brewis and based on the painting Standard Station by American pop artist Ed Ruscha, a print of which hung in Peter's bathroom.

A single, "(I Keep Thinking About) A New Thing", was released in December 2011. A second track, "A New Town", was also made available to download for free ahead of the album's release. "Who'll Pay the Bills?" was the third single released.

On 12 September 2012 the album was nominated for the 2012 Mercury Prize.

The album was well received by critics. Clashmusic gave the album 8 out of 10 and said "Plumb cements Field Music's reputation for truly magnificently crafted classic pop-rock, with an unashamed love of the grandiose soundscapes of the Seventies and a taste for adorning songs with neatly selected sounds from real life... An exhilarating and ambitious collection, it should bring Field Music a deservedly larger audience at last".The Fly rated the album 4½ out of 5 and said "Plumb exposes every inch of the Brewises' brilliance".MusicOMH called the group "one of the most exciting bands these shores have to offer" and said of the album that "they might scour the last 50 years of popular music for inspiration, but their end product is one of the freshest and most exciting guitar records since... well, since Field Music (Measure)" [the band's previous album].Mojo felt that being "easier to digest, more delicately seasoned and with better portion control than 2010's blow-out Measure, Plumb is a delicious tasting menu of rock history... 15 tracks packed with gear changes which dissolve boundaries, until you're listening to one giant prog suite circa '73."Uncut claimed that the band were "able to mine considerable emotional capital from their seemingly parochial concerns" and that the group were "fast becoming the cherished eccentrics of British guitar music".

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