BBC collective's Scores
- Music
For 150 reviews, this publication has graded:
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54% higher than the average critic
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4% same as the average critic
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42% lower than the average critic
On average, this publication grades 0.8 points higher than other critics.
(0-100 point scale)
Average Music review score: 74
Highest review score: | Panic Prevention | |
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Lowest review score: | The Brave And The Bold |
Score distribution:
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Positive: 117 out of 150
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Mixed: 33 out of 150
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Negative: 0 out of 150
150
music
reviews
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- BBC collective
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This is one of those rare albums that makes you wonder how you ever got by without it.- BBC collective
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In Rainbows really does present Radiohead at their most full-blooded and confident.- BBC collective
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An ambitious, filler-free, modernist-sounding beast which laughs in the face of underachievement.- BBC collective
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There are missteps... and the production is sometimes frustratingly muddy, but Neon Bible very nearly delivers on impossible expectations.- BBC collective
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M.I.A. and co-producers, including Switch, straddle more styles than you’d find in most music collections, let alone on the same disc.- BBC collective
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The songs on Comicopera rate amongst his very best--emotionally complex, politically charged but never short of beautiful.- BBC collective
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While their sound might have progressed in an even more bizarre – if sadly less atmospheric – direction, it's still surprising, full of invention and totally unique.- BBC collective
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Bewildered newcomers will soon be entranced, old fans won't be disappointed.- BBC collective
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Upon starting Soft Bulletin--you’re instantly whisked off into the universe the Flaming Lips have created. The musical journey that ensues is nothing short of imaginary genius--simple as.- BBC collective
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At 77 minutes it’s no sprint, but YLT’s mellifluous serpentines are never less than involving.- BBC collective
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[Finn's] smart, poetic, unashamedly adult lyrics... almost guarantee this is the best arena band that’ll never play an arena.- BBC collective
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It’s to her great credit that Newsom (literally) plucks artistic triumph from the jaws of cloying whimsy.- BBC collective
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The result is a folk album so rich and intricate that, in scope, it's comparable to Van Morrison's "Astral Weeks."- BBC collective
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It’s a winning combination, with the Prince’s shambolic charm still intact but lent clarity by the new additions that make this infinitely preferable to previous efforts.- BBC collective
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This is not a bunch of old blokes looking to recapture their youth; rather, Grinderman sounds like a freshly hewn and rudely vigorous chunk of leftfield rock.- BBC collective
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It’s exciting stuff, simple yet deadly effective.- BBC collective
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Turner’s sharp narrative ear is still tuned to the revealing banalities of everyday life, the whole band admirably responsive to emotional nuance.- BBC collective
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The lyrics are often sublime, of course, but there are big, stupid choruses too.- BBC collective
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Love Travels At Illegal Speeds is good stuff that doesn’t drive you round the bend. It doesn’t pack any surprises either.- BBC collective
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Warm and quirky. Pleasantly bizarre. Sophisticated and daft. Herbert at his best.- BBC collective
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Ward’s band kick back with a looser, rockier feel than previously, yet his dusty, wistful voice still inhabits an age all of its own.- BBC collective
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While still lush in its own grimy way, Ruff Draft represents the harsher, more experimental end of Dilla’s palette.- BBC collective
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Not all of Dangerfield's maverick ideas work - he should steer clear of under-accompanied singing for a start - but when they do take off, Guillemots really soar.- BBC collective
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Much of Hissing Fauna… dances in the face of its depressing subject matter.- BBC collective
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Filling the gaps between Prince and !!!, this is for those who spent the last two decades shaking their hips rather than banging their heads.- BBC collective
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There are off-centre, post-hardcore workouts and plenty of edgy but polished, pop fusion pieces, which suggest The Futureheads transplanted to 70s West Coast America.- BBC collective
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The new album conjures something of Condon’s own imagination, more deftly-etched romantic fiction than dry travelogue, and is all the better for it.- BBC collective
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The album’s dark title belies its artful balancing of psych pop’s sweetness with head-down, rock riffing and the emotional power of the blues.- BBC collective
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A complex yet controlled fourth album of astonishing beauty and perfect strangeness.- BBC collective
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Don't expect the gumption of Super Furries, instead bask in the mellow psychedelic ramblings of Gruff unplugged.- BBC collective
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Even by her own unsettling standards, however, her seventh album is disturbing, a collection of smudged and spectral laments that appear to have been written before the invention of penicillin.- BBC collective
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His vivid, scattershot rhymes are clever without being cryptic, and his techno-tinged beats never veer off into tuneless arhythmia.- BBC collective
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This only occasionally matches the breathtaking splendour of last year's …Illinoise! but with its modest price and immodest extras only Scrooge could fail to have his heart warmed.- BBC collective
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El-P's uniquely, beautifully harsh vision remains undiluted.- BBC collective
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Coming in 2007 it sounds oddly fresh, but nothing here’s as full-on as their early stuff or as lovely as Feel The Pain.- BBC collective
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Their second album continues in a similarly delicious vein, melding wonky electronics, pillow-soft soul and lyrics that manage to weave strange violence into gorgeous soul songs.- BBC collective
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Even the most melancholy moments... have airy jazz arrangements that let them breathe.- BBC collective
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The production is smoother, but when Sleeping Lessons morphs from an opiate dream to a riffing stomp with such exhilarating economy, or Red Rabbits wraps drunkenly swaying strings around yet another firmament-bound chorus, you can forgive an occasional excess of slickness.- BBC collective
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Five albums in, The Coup have just made their best since their debut.- BBC collective
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When Cease To Begin rocks out it's euphoric, but there's a mournfulness shadowing each of these insistent melodies that will have you crying even as you smile.- BBC collective
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It’s not just the recurrent meditations on mortality that makes Ma Fleur even more heart-rendingly beautiful than 2002’s Everyday, it’s also how The Cinematic Orchestra’s new album actually feels.- BBC collective
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There's a real richness here, and raw venom beneath any fey first impressions, as gentle finger-picking bursts into free-jazz fuzztone guitar blasts and bloodied lyrics.- BBC collective
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Frank is an honest, refreshingly personal record which, though very occasionally strays into easy jazz, has Gucci bags of personality.- BBC collective
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Now every track is an intensely creative pop gem, like those brilliant pockets scattered throughout previous releases, refined and condensed.- BBC collective
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Excellent Italian Greyhound is vintage Shellac: stark, razorous and blackly comic, lurching into whatever time signature happens to possess drummer Tod Trainer.- BBC collective
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The result is less cohesive than Vespertine or Medulla but the fun’s in the exuberance, the jolting between musical styles.- BBC collective
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The Go! Team are clearly committed to the lo-fi, DIY aesthetic, but with songs as strong as these it’s rather a shame they didn’t apply a little depth and finesse to their production.- BBC collective
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The Eraser’s sound lies somewhere between the roiling beat soup of Amnesiac and a poppier sensibility.- BBC collective
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It's a bewildering jumble on first gaze, but Harte's little fingerprint-smudged slivers, so lovingly composed, are precious things, and you'll fast find yourself addicted to his sweet, glum love stories.- BBC collective
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Their debut has a great deal of shadowy appeal: there are lyrics about ghosts and secrets, set to drowsy washes of guitar.- BBC collective
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This is a beautiful record; so wistful and reflective when it finishes it’ll make you feel instantly nostalgic.- BBC collective
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Though it still errs toward a languid late-60s template, Cabic’s songwriting is now crisp and effortlessly melodic.- BBC collective
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Having eschewed the over-earnest knob-twiddling of erstwhile producer Steve Albini, Verity Susman’s vocals and Mia Clarke’s guitars now sound crisp and urgent, and when the envelope gets pushed... the band’s detached cool melts into a pleasing joi de vivre.- BBC collective
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Sensuous, subtle but emotionally overwhelming dreamscapes, whose luminous beauty makes pigeonholing nigh on impossible.- BBC collective
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The confessional micro-detail of Darnielle’s minimal indie-folk songs – and haunted whine of a voice – remains stoically unchanged.- BBC collective
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Don't let the seductively pleasant drift of the tunes fool you: this is sharp, dark stuff.- BBC collective
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A cannily considered, thoroughly de nos jours mix of punk, skiffle and music hall-bred power pop which fizzes with energy and affects a brash charm, but adds little to Barat’s and Doherty’s original blueprint.- BBC collective
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The best thing about Garden Ruin is the way they look beyond country borders to engage with the wider world, both culturally and musically.- BBC collective
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This is cathartic, psychically haunted fare; pleasing and troubling in equal measure.- BBC collective
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Despite flashes of unexpected vigour, Everybody is ultimately more variation-on-a-theme than it is wheel reinvention.- BBC collective
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A less angular, more grown-up album - something that won’t rattle your nerves.- BBC collective
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Meek Warrior’s seven tracks form a sprawling tapestry where every guitar pluck, clarinet wail or joyous shout seems part of some euphoric cosmic plan.- BBC collective
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Good Bad, Not Evil delivers 13 testosterone-crazed grooves which mercifully give finicky revivalism the swerve, in favour of fuzz-frazzled sonics and lots of fun.- BBC collective
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It’s a fun mess, and although heavily indebted to 60s psyche folk and acid rock, Astronomy For Dogs has a verve and colour that saves it from derivative pastiche.- BBC collective
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The freewheeling garage bangers of Original Pirate Material have receded into the distance and we’re left with stabbing high-range synths... resulting in an album that’s charming and witty, but not as exhilarating as it might have been.- BBC collective
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He’s an acquired taste, perhaps, but a distinctive and extraordinarily talented songwriter.- BBC collective
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This anthology of new and previously released 7” singles is inevitably somewhat dishevelled as an album, but then this extraordinary band has always worked best in bite-size.- BBC collective
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Waterloo To Anywhere is more pro and muscular than former endeavours, chiming more with labelmates Razorlight’s ambitious professionalism.- BBC collective
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It's brilliant: Broder's twisted tales are better than ever, this time underpinned by urgent guitar riffs, off-beats and perfect pacing.- BBC collective
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Throughout, monster riffs abound. Perhaps this monochrome-clad cartoon combo are as great as singer Howlin’ Pelle always said they were.- BBC collective
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Experimental yet poppy, awkward yet unforced, Panic Prevention is a minor masterpiece from a truly bar-raising new talent.- BBC collective
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Their sophomore album is surprisingly world-weary, but brims with an almost brutal rawness and betrays the pair’s striking talent for storytelling.- BBC collective
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Klaxons serve up Day-Glo pagan ritual and pop silliness on toast, and kids get sick on it.- BBC collective
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Overblown orchestrations, searing choruses, a demonic self-help tape pastiche and odes to Tom Cruise’s private life are tempered by sparse melodic interludes and tender songs of souls battling against grim routine.- BBC collective
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Roots And Echoes is an album of songs with all the warmth and familiarity of old leather--and as strangely unexciting as that sounds.- BBC collective
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