"Amadou Bagayoko and Mariam Doumbia have climbed to the pinnacle of World Music," says Head Butler's Jesse Kornbluth in the Huffington Post. "But Welcome to Mali, their new CD, is wrongly titled, for with this release, they've made another, more dazzling ascent to an even loftier peak. This isn't World Music, to be filed in the Mali section—it's music from a very big world, made for everyone in the world."

Korbluth that insists of all the year's releases music one could pick up, "This is the one. This is the one because it's the right idea at the right time: a bundle of joy for a hurting planet. It's so all-inclusive" that, again, despite its title, "you'll have a hard time locating this music by geographic origin."

As ecumenical as Amadou & Mariam are in their inclusion of varied sounds, so too then can their music be widely enjoyed. "This is harmonious, joyous music, totally accessible pop that just happens to be symphonic in its power," Kornbluth writes. "Its real genius is its accessibility—it sounds so simple, so organic, that it's like a song you've always hummed (and danced to) in your private happy moments." It is hardly surprising then that the central focus of the album is its breadth of sounds, which, says Kornbluth, "evoke Motown and Phil Spector as much as they do African tribal chant."

Far less a factor in their music-making, he suggests, is the oft-discussed fact of their blindness. "Long ago, I bet, they learned how to translate the colors and shapes in their heads into sound; like Stevie Wonder, they hear so well there's almost nothing Amadou can't play on a guitar and Mariam can't sing."

"[N]o doubt about it," the review concludes, "with Welcome to Mali, Amadou and Mariam qualify as global superstars."

Read the full review at huffingtonpost.com.